I'm going to jump right in now and finish up my cottage stories.
Cats, cats, everywhere are cats.
With us, at the cottage, were three cats. Of course, I brought up Willi and Mom brought up Chester and Melody. This made for a lot of cats turning up all over the place, indoors and outside. Chester decided that he was wild again and spent most of his time sleeping outside in depressions in the ground surrounded by blueberry bushes. One was behind the house and another was up on the blueberry rock overlooking the house. Following one night where he and Willi were outside all night long, they both ended up staying close to home. Chester managed to injure the base of his tail, but it was healing nicely by the time I left and now Mom says it's fine. Melody, bless her furry old soul, spent most of her time asleep. At fifteen years of age, she is more than entitled to do so. Willi climbed a lot of trees, hung out on the roof, slid OFF the roof of the covered work table, and came with me on walks in the forest. Amazingly, all three of them came INside to use the litter pan. This, I do not comprehend.
Hummingbirds are evil little birds.
As a friend of ours said, "I don't know how they manage to breed." They seem to hate each other and anything else that they deem to be nasty. I was divebombed, as was my cat despite her utter lack of interest in them, and of course they fight with each other all the time. One, clearly the dominant male, spent the majority of his time perched on a branch near to the hummingbird feeder so that he could chase any other bird away and keep it to himself. In fact, for the first time that I've ever seen, this little male also flicked the ants off the feeder that had been attracted by the sugar water.
Mom had projects.
I don't think I have mentioned these already, but every year, Mom has at least one project. This year the biggy was her cantalevered (sp?) umbrella that she bought off the Shopping Channel. It is enormous. It's so huge that it HAS to be bolted to the deck or else it might blow away and take out a moose in the process. That's big. Another project she had was the building a baseboard along the join between the deck and house. In the process of jacking up the cottage (it sags every few years) the floor seperated slightly from the wall. So, she fixed that. And finally, since returning to Toronto, I have learned that she's been painting the ceiling in the bedroom. Go Mom !
Okay, finally... Bogmen !
Tracy and I had intended for some time to, you may recall, go see The Mysterious Bogpeople at the Museum of Civilisation in Hull (Gatineau, or whatever they're calling it now...). We didn't really have a lot of options for days when we could go see the exhibit, but we were not going to miss it. Anyway, it was a very good exhibition, though I prefer more in-depth text (Tracy, on the other hand, does not). It started with a nice creepy entrance that introduced us to the elements of the display. Passing that, we enter into a chronological walk-through that takes us from 10,000 years ago, into the Neolithic, and finally up until the Middle Ages. It introduced the viewers to the concept of sacrifice with artifacts that had been pulled from the peat before moving into the much more disturbing facts of human sacrifice. Finally, the exhibit ended in an area that demonstrated the science behind the research. Overall, it was a good exhibit that was well tailored to most age groups.
Okay, so those were the cottage stories, or at least a few of them, so now I can return to other things. The interview went really well. Once I got there. Wow. Talk about an adventure. The transit was simple enough, except the bus I was planning to take left as I arrived at Downsview station... and the next one wouldn't be for another half hour. In the middle of the morning?! Whatever. So, I called to say that I was going to be late, but I got the impression that they're a bit used to that. Then, when I got off at Keele and Steeles, I prepared to walk the "one block west". Oh, I walked it, but it had to be the better part of a kilometre long. I forgot that blocks up in the boonies are LONG. None of these reasonable, brief downtown blocks that I'm used to. Anyway, I recovered for a bit when I got to the office and then delivered a truly excellent interview. The interviewer had the style that I prefer, the informal conversation that covers all the requisite questions. Sweet. Anyway, I have to go back there tonight for stage two of the process. This sadly means that I'll be disappointing a six year old, Sierra, on her birthday, but there's nothing I can really do about it.
Anyway, in case there was any doubt about what kind of a person I am, here are some answers. Apparently, I'm a bit of a nerd.
I'm Hermione Granger!!
Witch Harry Potter Girl Are You?
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"99 Red Balloons" (by Nena)
99 Decision Street.
99 ministers meet.
To worry, worry, super-scurry.
Call the troops out in a hurry.
This is what we've waited for.
This is it boys, this is war.
The president is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by.
Which 80's Song Fits You?
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Threat rating: Medium. Your total lack of decent
family values makes you dangerous, but we can
count on some right wing nutter blowing you up
if you become too high profile.
What threat to the Bush administration are you?
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You come from the Middle Ages. Your soul came from
a time when dragons, knights, war and
Princesses ruled the land.
Where Did Your Soul Originate?
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Huh... that last one. Some time, maybe I'll tell you a story about that...
