Tuesday
November 5, 2002

Squashed

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Here are a few of my favorite online haunts:

REALTOR.ca
[This is the site I visit to fantasize about living in Toronto again, which is almost every single day during the winter]

Jonathan Cainer's Zodiac Forecasts
[This is where I visit in the morning, when I need a positive spin on things past, present and future.]

Living Local
[This is where I go to see what Canadians are up to, sometimes I even buy things from the businesses listed there.]

Environment Canada Weather
[This is the site I visit every morning, and before every road trip during the winter]

Mist is sleeping. She has been sleeping all day. She has been sleeping so soundly that several times I have stood over her, watching for the telltale rise and fall of fur.

By the end of last week, it became apparent that Mist suffered from an infestation of fleas. It is a mystery as to how this came to be, she is an indoor cat and has had no exposure to the earth or other animals. My, that sounds grim, does it not?

Anyway, fleas tormented Mist. Her personality slowly evolved until we noticed that she was jumpy, often distressed, and constantly scratching. The final proof came when I found a dead flea in a hair-ball.

Yesterday, after researching shots, and topical treatments, I decided to use Advantage from Bayer. It sounded promising, but was quite expensive. It claimed to eventually eliminate fleas from Mist's fur, and our house.

The next step was to acquire this magic liquid. Veterinarians only sell it. The first one that I called insisted on seeing Mist first, before "prescribing" the flea treatment. She only wanted $48.00 plus tax for seeing her and $58.00 plus tax for the prescribed treatment.

Several more calls revealed that animal clinics had a wide range of prices and required services. At the end of an hour, I had made my decision. Mist sat on my lap the whole time, licking my hand, licking the keyboard, and moving about endlessly in circles. It seemed important to make a quick decision, and to take immediate action.

An early drive to the other side of the city, and I purchased the treatment for $43.99 plus tax. Thank goodness for the little green car. But for which, I would have been stuck dragging a terrified cat in a cage to a nearby animal clinic, and paying $106.00 plus tax for exactly the same thing.

After arriving home, I settled myself in front of the keyboard, where Mist likes to visit my lap. Soon she had joined me and I applied the liquid to the skin at the base of her neck.

She was livid! She struggled against me. I won. She was a very sore loser. The moment I released her she leapt from my lap. She first settled herself in a corner of Attila's studio. Lying on some papers, her head glumly propped upon one outstretched leg; she eyed me with suspicion.

When I approached her, she made a run for the basement, where she stayed for the rest of the day. Her return in the evening was calculated to impress upon me the error of my ways. She sat, back turned, refusing to acknowledge my existence. Later, by her food dish, I discovered several dead fleas. Success!

This morning she was her usual friendly self, it seems I am forgiven. Today, she has taken over my chair in the living room and has been sleeping for the past 6 hours. Finally, she can rest comfortably. She is back to being her own calm self.

A few weeks ago Attila brought home a lot of squash. This squash grew unattended in a compost heap, and most of it was gigantic. No one else cared to harvest the bounty, so Attila brought it all home.

I have been cooking squash forever! We like it seeded, quartered, and baked with a bit of butter and brown sugar. We like it boiled and mashed.

I am still trying to come up with new ways to eat squash. Today I came up with something I will prepare again tomorrow. I beat together 1 egg, 1/2 cup pureed squash, a dash of salt, freshly ground pepper, and 1 tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese. I poured this mixture into a small heated frying pan where I had melted a bit of butter. After browning one side, I attempted to flip it like a pancake. It was a bit crumbly, and so broke apart. When the other side was browned I transferred it to a plate and sat down on the footstool, near Mist in my chair, to gobble it up.

Mist did not move a hair.



Top of Page
RECIPES :: Cast

Worldly Distractions

Flea Specimen from http://dallas.tamu.edu/insects/
Unwelcome Guest



By the Easy Chair
The Day Gone By:
An Autobiography
by Richard Adams
(A slow, delightful peek at how the "right" attitude passes from one generation to the next.)



Quote
"We were not, of course (ah! those class conscious days), on visiting terms with tradespeople; you didn't ask tradespeople to tennis parties or anything like that. Nevertheless my father - and my mother - had many friends among tradespeople in the town, most of whom were always ready to oblige Dr. Adams [father]."
The Day Gone By:
An Autobiography
by Richard Adams
pg 83



Weather
20:01 EST
Temp: 2`C
Humidity: 75%
Wind: NE 20 km/h
Barometric:101.9 kPa

Sunrise 6:55 AM EST
Sunset 5:20 PM EST
 

Page by Page: A Woman's Journal
Photography
Poetry
by Maggie Turner

Canadian Maggie Turner writes and publishes poetry, photography, and a personal journal online. Her work reflects the current way of life in Canada, embracing Canada's past, present, and future in a unique portrayal of everyday life. Maggie's voice is one of the many that actively depict the rich diversity of Canadian culture.

Photography: "a term which comes from the Greek words photos (light) and graphos (drawing). A photograph is made with a camera by exposing film to light in order to create a negative. The negative is then used in the darkroom to print a photograph (positive) onto light-sensitive paper.
Source: University of Arizona Glossary

Poetry: "a form of speech or writing that harmonizes the music of its language with its subject. To read a great poem is to bring out the perfect marriage of its sound and thought in a silent or voiced performance. At least from the time of Aristotle's Poetics, drama was conceived of as a species of poetry."
Source: Creative Studios

Journal: " "Though a journal may be many things - a treasury, a storehouse, a jewelry box, a laboratory, a drafting board, a collector's cabinet, a snapshot album, a history, a travelogue..., a letter to oneself - it has some definable characteristics. It is a record, an entry-book, kept regularly, though not necessarily daily.... Some (entries) will be nearly illegible, written in the dark in the middle of the night.... Not only is it a record for oneself, but of oneself. Every memorable journal, any successful journal, is honest. Nothing sham, phony, false...." (Dorothy Lambert from Ken Macrorie's book, Writing to be Read )
A journal is a way to keep track of your thoughts about what you read... as well as what you did on any given day."
Source: Journal Writing

A Blog is an online journal created by server side software, often hosted by a commercial interest.

"The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[4] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.[5][6][7] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging


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