Christmas is coming

There are things about my childhood that I miss, and one of them is paper advent calendars. They were simple and pretty, and since my birthday occurs close to the end of advent, they always had something of a personal meaning for me.

The advent calendars I had as a child came from Germany. The pictures were old-fashioned and somewhat religious, although some had secular scenes. Each hinge I opened had a pretty picture behind it. I bought the last one I had in grade six, a memorable year in my then-young life. I haven't seen an advent calendar like this in decades, probably since before I left my parents' house. (And of course, I know there are advent calendars with chocolate and other treats in them; these were not the ones I grew up with.)

So imagine my delight when I recently found a paper advent calendar in the style of, if not exactly like, the ones I had as a child. (Sadly, I think there were others, but I waited a week to buy one and the selection was diminished.)

Here is my new advent calendar!

And now that I know they still exist, I can look for another one next year.

As wise people have said, it's never too late to have a happy childhood. Indeed.


 

The vault of lost lyrics, chapter 16

Another once-fresh song now rendered ubiquitous by covers. Not that I dislike the covers: the Michael Andrews/Gary Jules version from the Donnie Darko soundtrack is finely interpreted. But the original still hits me like a punch every time.

**

"Mad World" (as recorded by Tears for Fears)

All around me are familiar faces

Worn-out places, worn-out faces

Bright and early for their daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression, no expression

Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

Cos I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it's a very very

Mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good

Happy birthday, happy birthday

Made to feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me, no one knew me

Hello teacher, tell me, what's my lesson?

Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

Cos I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it's a very very

Mad world

(repeat and fade)

The vault of lost lyrics, chapter 83

Once startlingly fresh, now ubiquitous: the story of so many songs of the 1980s. But this one holds a special place in my heart. Is it, as the video suggests, a ghost story? Or just one's emotional weather?

**

"Here Comes the Rain Again" (as recorded by Eurythmics)

Here comes the rain again

Falling on my head like a memory

Falling on my head like a new emotion

I want to walk in the open wind

I want to talk like lovers do

I want to dive into your ocean

Is it raining with you?

So baby talk to me

Like lovers do

Walk with me

Like lovers do

Talk to me

Like lovers do

Here comes the rain again

Raining in my head like a tragedy

Tearing me apart like a new emotion

I want to breathe in the open wind

I want to kiss like lovers do

I want to dive into your ocean

Is it raining with you?

So baby talk to me

Like lovers do

Here comes the rain again

Falling on my head like a memory

Falling on my head like a new emotion

I want to walk in the open wind

I want to talk like lovers do

I want dive into your ocean

Is it raining with you?

The vault of lost lyrics, chapter 2

Consensus says the lyrics are about a girl getting involved with drugs, and perhaps that's what the writer intended. But when I first heard this song back in elementary school, I heard a different story. Boys, beware.

**

"Magic Man" (Heart)

Cold late night so long ago

When I was not so strong you know

A pretty man came to me

Never seen eyes so blue

You know I could not run away

It seemed we'd seen each other in a dream

It seemed like he knew me

He looked right through me, yeah

Come on home, girl

He said with a smile

You don't have to love me yet

Let's get high awhile

But try to understand

Try to understand

Try, try, try to understand

I'm a magic man

Winter nights we sang in tune

Played inside the months of moon

Never think of never

Let this spell last forever

Well, summer lover passed to fall

Tried to realize it all

Mama says she's worried

Growing up in a hurry, yeah

Come on home, girl

Mama cried on the phone

Too soon to lose my baby yet

My girl should be at home

But try to understand

Try to understand

Try, try, try to understand

He's a magic man, mama

He's a magic man

Come on home, girl

He said with a smile

I cast my spell of love on you

A woman from a child

But try to understand

Try to understand

Try, try to understand

Try, try, try to understand

He's a magic man

He got magic hands

Come on home, girl

He said with a smile

You don't have to love me yet

Let's get high awhile

But try to understand

Try to understand

Try, try, try to understand

He's a magic man

The Boat

Since relatively few people opt to live aboard a boat for months at a time, it occurred to me that you might not understand what our life in Victoria is like. Here are some pictures I took of the boat, most of them back in August, to give you some sense of our space. 

1. This picture is from ten days ago when we were at Portland Island: the boat at anchor. The boat is 38 feet long with a 60-foot mast. The canvas enclosure at the stern gives us an extra room; on warm days we can sit, cook, and eat dinner out there. Not so much now, though.

2. This is the binnacle, looking from inside the boat on the stairs — a passage called the companionway. The binnacle is where we control the boat; it's where the wheel is, plus the various instruments for tracking wind, speed, and location. The canvas encloses this space. In the background you can see the outboard motor (on the left) and the barbeque (on the right). The area around the binnacle is called the cockpit and is the source of many, many jokes.

3. These are the companionway stairs, from which I took the previous picture. In the background, to the left, you see the entrance to the back berth, which is where we sleep. I'm not going to post a picture of that because it's usually kinda messy and all my everything is scattered everywhere. The door on the right is to the head, another picture I'm not going to post — who posts a picture of a bathroom?

 4. Turning around on the companionway stairs, you see the galley, or kitchen to the less nautical among us. The freezer is inside the cabinetry directly under the towel; the fridge is also in the cabinetry, immediately next to the freezer.

4a. Just took this picture to make to make the galley make more sense (sorry it's so dark: the sky is very overcast today). Here you see the fridge and stove, plus our kitchen storage. Vegetables keep really well in the space between the fridge compartment and the boat wall; currently we have a cucumber, some potatoes, and half a head of cauliflower there, plus some leftover wine for cooking. (I know: leftover wine?!?)

5. Viewed from the galley, this is the settee and would be the dining area if we raised the table (which is beneath the front-most cushions right now). If you've ever been in an RV, you understand this configuration. Two people could sleep here if necessary. The big silver pole is our mast — well, actually it's not; it's a compression post, which connects the mast to the keel, dispersing the weight of the mast from the deck to the keel (it's called a deck-stepped mast, if you're interested). You can see that the aisle is rather narrow; the boat is twelve feet wide on the outside at its widest point (its beam), which is roughly at the frosted-glass back splash in the galley. You can probably get a sense of space from that.

6. Also viewed from the galley, this is the seating area, where we tend to eat lately and where we sit to read and write. The large breaker board on the left side of the picture is where we control our lights, heat, and power; you can also see the VHF radio, for weather and communications on the water. Supposedly one person could sleep on the seating area if we raised the table top, but it would have to be a short, thin person who slept like a rock.

7. This is the settee viewed from behind the compression post. The focus in this image isn't sharp, but you may be able to perceive the curve of the boat. The settee is a good place to lounge, read, or watch "TV" (DVDs on the laptop). It's also not completely uncomfortable if you fall asleep there, IMO.

8. Turning around from the previous picture, you see into the forward cabin. It's a V-berth, which means the sleeping space, intended for two, forms a V from head to feet, pointing at the bow of the boat. It's really tiny. We tidied since I took this picture (because Zak was coming), but it often looks like this; B refers to it as our garage because it's where we store things we don't need often, including canned and packaged groceries and dirty laundry.

9. This is the chart table viewed from behind the compression post. I'm sitting here as I type this blog entry. There was a lot of sunlight when I took the picture, which accounts for the over-exposure — sorry. What's also changed since this picture was taken is the artwork, which we replaced with a triptych of owls to remind us of home

9a. The owls. I'm the one at the top, apparently.

10. Another view of the companionway stairs, to give you a sense of width and space. Also, you can see the barometer (the round, clock-like object in the right third of the image), which has become my little mechanical friend over the last few months.

11. After all this work, I am le tired, so I'm going back to bed. Ha ha. We've now added my Newfoundland quilt to the pile: nights are COLD!

I hope this post has helped you understand (and my future self remember) a little about the boat on which we live. Next I'll have to write about the marina here in Victoria — but that's a post for another day. Cheers!

Sweet dreams, baby

Good morning! It's Throwback Thursday again, and in the spirit of Hallowe'en, here's my current favourite candy treat.

As a child, my favourite chocolate bar was a Mackintosh's Wigwag. Do you remember those? They no longer exist in any market I know, but at British import shops (and several groceries in Victoria), a replacement exists: the Cadbury CurlyWurly!

Yum!

And you thought I was in Victoria to read and write.

Field Trip: Butchart Gardens

Last Saturday we left our dock for a mini-vacation. You know, because living in Victoria isn't enough of a break.

After an easy overnight anchored at the south end of Portland Island, we motored (no wind) through Saanich Inlet and into Tod Inlet. There we tied up on a mooring buoy and took the dinghy across to the back entrance to the Butchart Gardens. After a brief delay — there are comparatively few visitors arriving by boat in late October — we were admitted and spent a few hours admiring all the greens, reds, and golds of autumn in one of the world's best-known gardens.

Pictures trump words, however, when one visits gardens. So here are some pictures. 

This is one view of the Japanese garden, which is the first garden we saw when we arrived. It is, as you can see, stunning; we could have stayed there for our whole visit and filled our eyes with colour, shape, and texture.

 

Did I mention that it started to rain as we set out in the dinghy? The rain added a lovely dimension to the experience. And as things turned out, the skies had cleared and the sun was shining again before we left.

I loved the sheen of the rain on these begonias but don't have the technical skill — or the equipment — to catch what my eyes really saw.

Another spectacular display was to be found in the sunken garden, which is probably the showpiece of the gardens. The sunken garden was the original lime quarry; this picture is taken from one of the high points.

I loved the amur maple in the backyard of our St. Albert house, but this shrub is even better.

The rose garden is the most diminished garden at this time of year, as most of the canes have been trimmed and only a few were still blooming. But as a Prairie girl, I was astonished to see (and smell) roses a week before Hallowe'en. What a scent to inhale in October!

Two totem poles stand in the gardens, raised to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the gardens. This detail shows an otter holding pups and a clam. Yay, otters!

 I couldn't possibly capture all the colours and varieties of dahlias on display in this riot of flowers, but this particularly contrasting section caught my eye.

I found this planting atop a waste bin on the grounds. The truly black plant was arresting — and then I saw it in several other plantings.

The mooring buoys (there are five) across Butchart Cove are complimentary for gardens visitors. (Note, however, that stern-tying is mandatory when you're on these buoys, as there is almost no swing room.) And I should mention that the Saanich Inlet is filled with surprises: between noon and five o'clock on Saturday we watched sea lions, humpback whales, and a hummingbird. There aren't many other places on earth where you could have that experience.

All in all, it was a grand visit. I hope we'll get back to Butchart Gardens in the spring before we leave the coast.

Now, onward to the San Juans!

Way, way back

Good morning!

So, did you take part in yesterday's Back to the Future day? I have never seen the movie (though I have seen parts of it), so didn't have much to contribute.

Instead, here's my Thursday Throwback, this one all the way to 1993. Beside me is James, a friend from my undergrad days with whom we later lost touch. His partner David took the picture in the parking lot at the Safeway in Garneau. Strange days indeed.

Gratitude: Sweet dreams

Today I am grateful for the friends who visit me in my dreams. Even when they are a long distance away — or gone from this realm — they are remembered, missed, cherished. And never far from me in my heart.

From Victoria with love

Howdy, and happy Friday. Today's post was supposed to appear yesterday, as a Throwback Thursday, but I missed. I'd say it's because I'm a little behind, but I think a few too many of you would agree with that — or would even embellish the sentiment. ("Tell all the truth but tell it slant" — insert winky face here.)

Anyway. Here's a picture from 1994, on a working vacation in Victoria. I wish I hadn't cut my hair. And the Undersea Gardens also is no more. I miss my youth!

Back again

Hello! Back in Edmonton briefly and catching up with the internet. Here are some wise words to start us off:

"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."

(These are the words Dumbledore rises to say on Harry's first day at Hogwarts. One of my favourite scenes.)

No?

OK. Here are some pictures instead.

1. Rebecca Spit, Quadra Island. 

2. The scenery currently in my head. (Cities are suddenly weird.) Trees and rocks and whales.

3. An extra orca picture: just because.

I'll try to write some more linear words soon.

Wildlife bonanza

As we begin to move south after our extended visit to the Broughtons, it seems appropriate to do a round-up of the wildlife we've seen. It truly is extraordinary.

• raccoons

• black bears (a pair!)

• bald eagles (countless, both mature and juvenile)

• ravens, crows, and jays (numerous)

• Canada geese

• cormorants

• loons

• osprey (fishing!)

• kingfishers (fishing!)

• herons (hunting)

• auklets (innumerable)

• various other birds, particularly gulls and ducks (zillions)

• orcas (never enough!)

• humpback whales (feeding!)

• Dall's porpoises

• harbour porpoises

• Pacific white-sided dolphins

• sea lions

• seals (innumerable)

Still waiting...

• otter (B and Z saw four! but I haven't see one yet)

• wolf

• cougar

• grizzly bear

... and all the other sea life that complements the basic setting of trees and rocks, such as clams, oysters, cockles, mussels, barnacles, starfish, jelly fish, and fish.

(If my round-up looks like a tick list, I suppose it is. Or maybe a wish list. This trip has underlined how much I value the opportunity to view animals in their natural habitat. Some of our encounters on this trip have been mind-altering.)

If I had more of my plant books with me or could remember them better, I'd be better prepared to discuss the various tree species we've seen. Zak brought us a copy of Pojar and MacKinnon's Plants of Coastal British Columbia (revised ed.), though, so I know we've seen hemlock, various fir, Sitka spruce, shore pine, western yew, red-cedar and yellow cedar, arbutus, red alder, and of course Pseudotsuga menziesii, AKA Douglas-fir (but Pseudotsuga menziesii is more fun to say), as well as the ubiquitous salal (a shrub, not a tree) and many other trees and shrubs. I like the berry shrubs best, particularly the blackberries. (Am missing raspberries, though.) The diversity of plant life is astonishing.

If you have the chance to visit the Broughtons, go: it's a fantastic trip. Prepare to be changed!

Highlight reel

Howdy from the Broughton Archipelago. Internet is scarce, so here's a quick update of some of the things we've seen and done in the last four weeks.

1. Me at the helm. Yes, I really do sail and motor our boat.

2. The dinghy. My father laughed when I mentioned the dinghy; he said he never imagined knowing someone who had a dinghy. Well, now he does!

3. Orcas! We finally saw some north of Village Island — and have the pictures to prove it.

4. Crabs. If you ask a fisher about his catch, he might share some of it with you. We let these crabs go right after we took the picture — I wasn't prepared for seafood for supper.

More soon, I hope!

From a little acorn

It's Zak's birthday today. Happy birthday, Zak!  Here are a few pictures to celebrate the boy he was.

1. May 1992, Long Beach (near Tofino): Zak in his stroller on his first trip to the West Coast. Next stop, Japan!

2. August 1995, Canmore: Zak's first trip in a helicopter. Definitely not sure whether he likes it.

3. August 2002, Rock Lake: One of the last pictures in which Zak is shorter than I am.

Looking forward to watching you continue to learn and grow in the year ahead. Cheers!

love,
Mum

What I'm Reading Lately

Three weeks into our voyage to the Broughtons and area, and I've been doing a fair amount of reading. Haven't kicked my insomnia, and days on anchor tend to be quiet. So, in lieu of an update, here's a quick rundown of my recent reading.

Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking

I have only lately come to be fan of Amanda Palmer, mainly due to old habits dying hard. This book is based on AFP's TED talk, which has had some ten million-plus views, but encompasses so much more about her background, her personal life, and her artistic process — a cross between a guidebook and a musician's memoir. Perfect for me! AFP has a lot to say about asking for help, being a creator, dealing with impostor syndrome, and living in the present. I really admired this book and feel I read it at exactly the right moment in my life.

Mary Norris, Between You and Me

Another cross, this one between an editor's memoir and a grammar handbook. I laughed out loud repeatedly while reading this book: it's smart, funny, nerdy in all the right ways, and soundly informative. I found the copyediting of the book itself fascinating, and of course devoured the discussion of editorial processes at the New Yorker. I doubt this is a good pick for a grammar neophyte, but for anyone who enjoys word play, precise punctuation, and technical grammar, it's a winner.

Keith Houston, Shady Characters

Not quite a companion to Norris' book, this book discusses English punctuation marks and how they evolved, from the pilcrow to the irony mark. Not in any way a guidebook, but its discussion of history (particularly the examples from medieval manuscripts and early print) will fascinate anyone who thinks about typography and publishing conventions.

David Downie, A Passion for Paris

I'd been reading this book off and on since late April. Yet another cross — part travel writing, part cultural history — this book discusses famous creators, all of them living in a concentration of Paris neighbourhoods, and their various romantic intrigues. Rooted primarily in the nineteenth century, it provided valuable back story to aspects of Modernism with which I was already familiar and encouraged me to learn more about certain French writers I've largely avoided. Not my usual kind of book, but I won it on LibraryThing and am happy I did.

Heidi Pitlor, The Daylight Marriage

In case you think I'm reading nothing but non-fiction on this trip, I should mention this novel, another book I won through LibraryThing. I was surprised by this book: I was expecting a typical domestic novel of middle-class ennui. Instead, it was a tightly composed literary text about emotional climate change, wrapped around the outlines of a crime novel. It was skillfully written and rich, but I suspect in reviews the book suffered from the dismissive descriptor "women's novel." (No way I can check this suspicion just now, though...)

Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

A sweet, sweet book about love, reading, and the canals of France. Having travelled by canal boat repeatedly (and having spent time in the centre of Paris), I could follow the characters' journey easily. The characters are quirky, and the story is heartwarming. If you liked The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, you'll probably like this novel, too. Again, I suspect this book is easily dismissed as a "women's novel," but that's unfair, as there's much to admire in these pages — and it's selling well, which is quite an accomplishment in the current publishing market.

Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (illustrated edition). In a word: masterpiece.

There have been a few other titles in my reading mix, too, but the ones I've just listed have overlapped and entwined in unexpected ways. I'm filling up my word reserve, getting ready to start capturing some of my own on screen (and eventually on paper).

Onward!

Now reading: Michael Crummey, Sweetland

Music for Mark

A few years ago, a friend of mine was going through a very difficult period. He lost his mother, then his father, in the span of thirteen months, and then had some serious medical issues himself. To cheer him up — because we are both 80s kids — I sent him a mix CD with no track listing, so he had to play detective, something we both enjoy. I was particularly pleased with this mix and have embellished it just slightly in the last year. Perhaps you'd enjoy it too.

 

"Mowgli's Road" — Marina and the Diamonds

"Gobbledigook" — Sigur Rós

"Velvet Revolution" — Tori Amos

"Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" — Jet

"I Want You for Mine" — Michael Rault

"L'ours" — Tricot Machine

"Spinmeharder" (boot) — DJ Tripp

"Paper Shoes" — Hawksley Workman

"Salute Your Solution" — The Raconteurs

"Dude You Feel Electrical" — Shout Out Out Out Out

"This Wheel's On Fire" — Siouxsie & The Banshees

"You, Me and the Bourgeoisie" — The Submarines

"I Was Made for Loving You" — Kilt

"Booinlove" (boot demo) — DJ Tripp

"A.C.D.C." — Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

"Banditos" — The Refreshments

"Motorpsycho Nitemare" — Capt Nemo

"Jerusalem" — Dan Bern

"Love Ire & Song" — Frank Turner

"Sub su'a job" — Mad'moizèle Giraf

"Start Wearing Purple" — Gogol Bordello

"A Complete History of the Soviet Union, Through the Eyes of a Humble Worker" — Pig with the Face of a Boy

"Brave Sir Robin" — Brad Bradley and David Hyde Pierce (Spamalot)

"Float On" — Modest Mouse

I do love a well-crafted playlist!

Sailing, sailing

As we get ready for our trip north, here's an image from our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island in May 2015. This photo was taken at dinner the night before we left. Our captain, Tim, is at the far right of the image; his wife, Donna, was the photographer.

Here's to warm winds and good friends!

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing

 

More than ten years ago I started writing a magazine article about popular music and grammar. My premise was that the songs we sing along with transmit a great deal, including troublesome grammar — although the grammar trouble is probably not the songwriter's intention. I also observed an extensive use of rhetorical schemes in popular lyrics. Some day I may go back to the article, though the impetus for writing it has long since passed out of existence.

But since I'm thinking about grammar a lot lately, here is, in my opinion, the most obvious grammar error in popular music, generated in the aid of pattern and rhyme: "Song she sang to me / Song she brang to me / Words that rang in me / Rhyme that sprang from me" (from Neil Diamond's "Play Me"). Lovely song, but that line always clunks for me, a merciless editor.

Also demonstrating pattern, as well as the rhetorical scheme of anthimeria (in which one part of speech is used in place of another, expected part), is Paul Simon's cheeky "A Simple Desultory Phillipic," which opens, "I've been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored; / I've been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd; / I've been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I'm blind" and continues on with similar name play.

Other examples included slips from Kate Bush, Laura Branigan, Melissa Etheridge, Rosanne Cash, and Bryan Adams. And perhaps you'd be surprised to learn that Jim Steinman's lyrics offer a rich vein of examples of rhetorical schemes. 

Bet you haven't thought about pop lyrics like this lately. If you have examples of your favourite grammar errors in pop lyrics, I'd love to hear them — please share!

Rue-ful

Here's a fun group of people — staff and faculty from the Centre for the Arts — at a restaurant on rue Saint-Laurent in Montréal, June 2006. Of the seven, one has died, three have retired, and the others have (been) scattered. How way leads on to way...

Tick tick tick tick

The time before we leave is growing short and my mind is scattered. Thus, today's blog is a collection of witty things I've found and liked. Perhaps Pinterest is the better medium for this kind of thing today, but whatever. Enjoy!

**

Copyeditors do it with style.

Today's rain is tomorrow's whiskey. — Old Scottish saying. (In which case, Scotland must make an awful lot of whiskey!)

Even overweight, cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses. — John Weitz.

His face took on the expression of an Englishman about to speak French. — P.G. Wodehouse

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. — Groucho Marx

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. — A. Whitney Brown

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. — English Professor