Ambushed by 2019

Woke up this morning with a start. The Resident Fan Boy had gone to work - back after more than two weeks off, and I realized that it was January 3rd, and the things that seemed so far off during Christmas - aren't.

I bolted out of bed and turned on the radio.

This song, which has been getting a fair bit of airplay on CBC Radio for the past month or so, is about other things that are far off. Hawksley Workman is singing about the towns of Battleford and North Battleford in Saskatchewan, but he grew up in Huntsville, another small town in Ontario, during the 1980s.

Most Canadians growing up in any Canadian town or even city in the latter half of the 20th century, though, will recognize elements of this song.



I feel less panicky this evening. I got a few things done.

Some years begin with a whimper

If "begin as you mean to continue" applies to years, I may be in trouble. I did try to begin 2017 with energy and motivation, but soon found myself wheezing, whimpering, and coughing in a corner of the living room, felled by the Resident Fan Boy's Christmas gift to me: a man-cold in all its phlegmy glory. He also gave me the DVD set of Wolf Hall, lest you think less of him.

As someone who hasn't really had a bad cold in over a year, I am out of practice with invalidism. I do wipe down surfaces with rubbing alcohol to excellent effect, but got trapped in our tiny front hall with four of the RFB's power sneezes, which, he insists, he is unable to contain.

Heaven help us if we're ever in hiding.

I'm deriving dubious comfort from this song from The Divine Comedy which was released in 1999, but, I believe, didn't chart in Britain until a decade later. It's about allergies, but I'm living with symptoms -- particularly those liquidy sneezes in the instrumental bridge.

Singing out the Seventh Day of Christmas (and 2011)

Well, I've made it to the National Arts Centre twice within the past twenty-four hours, first, to see Oliver, and this afternoon, The Blue Man Group, and only managed to hack during "As Long As He Needs Me", so I don't think too many theatre patrons want to kill me. "ALAHNM" is such a lame song, don't you think?

However, my cold has left me with no singing voice whatsoever, so I'm leaving it to good ol' Uncle Jay to sing out the old year. He's American-centric, but damn funny:



Oh yes. And the very best of 2012 to everyone. May it be an improvement. We could all use improvement...

The seventh day of Christmas (the first without egg nog)

The Resident Fan Boy phoned in our dairy order yesterday morning. We discovered Cochrane's Dairy about three years ago, when we longed to return to milk in glass bottles. (It just doesn't taste as good otherwise.) Knowing better, but feeling he had to ask, the RFB checked to see if we could get in any egg nog for New Year's. "We've finished the egg nog for this year," he was told. "Thank goodness!" (She says that every year.) So we'll struggle to keep Christmas until Epiphany, battling the outside world's determination to get back to business.

A year ago, I set up this blog out of curiosity and posted one post, as I teetered on the brink of 2008. This is my 101st post and the 100th for the year, which pleases a corner of my obsessive-compulsive soul. To my tiny group of commenters, and to the slightly-larger band of lurkers, peace, health, prosperity and happiness in the coming year and always. See you next year!