Heads of state hyperventilating

British election today; elder daughter has probably already hit her local polling place. So-called Independence Day in the States, with the fall-out of the disasterous Trump/Biden debate, which I tried so hard to ignore - but it's everywhere. 

And today, a columnist in the Guardian, of all places, suggested the United Kingdom should be arming, because Trump was going to win in November, and he worships Vladmir Putin.

This is a catchy song. A bit depressing, but catchy. The sheriff disappeared. 

He drove in a doomed Corvette. 

Helen was in the passenger seat eating melon and spitting out the seeds, 

Feeling happy to be alone,

but still tuning a saxophone as cold as stone. 

She said: "This is what the apocalypse will look like: 

A tornado with human eyes, 

Poisoned birdbaths, and torrents of chemical rain, 

Like the heads of state hyperventilating in clouds of methane, 

Sundown on the human heart. 

And this is what the apocalypse will sound like, 

But it will be loud as a mushroom cloud. 

It will sound like 'Final Jeopardy', 

But somehow be ghostly like a glockenspiel, 

Like the testing of bombs, or the tapping of stiletto heels. 

It will sound like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn." 

The sheriff disagreed. 

He tried to make the distinction 

Between death and extinction.

They stopped off at a place called Hamburger Heaven to grab a bite to eat, 

But Helen had no appetite; she just drank a 7 Up 

While the sheriff tapped his coffee cup to a distant beat. 

"It won't look like those old frescoes - man I don't think so. 

There will be no angels with swords - man I don't think so. 

No jubilant beings in the sky above - man I don't think so. 

And it won't look like those old movies neither. 

There will be no drag racing through the bombed out streets neither. 

No shareholders will be orbiting the earth, man, neither. 

It will be hard to recognise each other through our oxygen masks. 

The successful sons of businessmen will set their desks on fire, 

While five star generals of the free world weep in the oil-choked tide. 

It won't sound like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn." 

 

They agreed to disagree. 

They zoomed off in a doomed Corvette. 

The sheriff couldn't recall feeling this way his entire life, 

As he drove through the principalities of unreality 

On the run with somebody else's wife, 

The heiress of Texas oil. 

'What is freedom?' he thought. 

'Is it to be empty of desire? 

Is it to find everything I've lost or have been in search of? 

Or is it to return to the things to which there is no more returning?

Does it feel like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn?'

Intimations of mortality

Earlier this week, I felt the warmth of the sun for the first time this year. By Friday, though, the sun was washed out by a nest of grey, shining though with a silvery-white spotlight.

It's cold. The coffee-shops and restaurants have fewer customers. I don't see as many cars on the street, although there seem to be more cyclists, who may be avoiding public transit. Next-to-no dog-walkers. Poor dogs.

With the announcement that the Prime Minister's wife is infected with COVID-19, and is in "self-isolation" with the PM and their three children, things began shutting down. One of the first institutions in Victoria to go was the Symphony, understandably, given the median age of its subscribers.

Fortunately for us, our tickets for this season were used up in early February, back when the news was all about impeachment and Brexit. (Good times.)

It was the eve of Demeter's big birthday, which had put us all in mind of our own respective mortalities. Then the Resident Fan Boy and I went to hear a "Naked Classics" version of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony (No. 6). This is an event where the first half is a dissection of the work, while the second half is the piece itself.

The Pathétique Symphony was one of the pieces I studied when I indulged myself in a Music Appreciation course, when I was studying for a diploma in Applied Linguistics, and sneaking in electives for which I'd had no time when doing my undergraduate degree.

I haven't listened to the Sixth Symphony in years, but mainly remembered the four highly recognizable themes of each movement: the "footsteps of fate" closing of the first movement, the 5/4 faux waltz of the second movement, the frantic 6/8 scherzo overlaying the third movement, and the "sobbing" strings of the fourth.

When I was taking the course years ago, the received wisdom was that Tchaikovsky committed suicide shortly after this symphony premiered in October 1893, by deliberately drinking contaminated water and dying, horribly, of cholera. Apparently, they're not so certain of that anymore.

Our host, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, and live demonstrations of his points from the Victoria Symphony, went through Tchaikovsky's "plan" for the symphony: Life-force - Love - Disappointment - Death. The strings demonstrated that the descending main theme in the fourth movement is, in fact, a sort of trompe d'oreille, created by the first and second violins playing completely different melodies. Our attention was also drawn to the beating-heart effect in the same movement -- which eventually slows and stops. In performance after intermission, the lights dimmed, and the orchestra disappeared into darkness.


It's so odd re-visiting this symphony after first experiencing it as a twenty-something, when I found it just a bit over-the-top. Hearing it again all these years later, I appreciated it, recognized it, yet found it profoundly sad and disturbing. The pushing insistence of Life, followed by the falling short of one's dreams, and the descent into death. Cuts a bit close, these days.

I'm not sorry I went, but am somehow grateful that I didn't get it in my twenties. That would be profoundly sad and disturbing indeed.

Hung out to dry

Do you know how today is supposed to be Blue Monday? (Experts don't think it is, by the way.)

Well, yesterday was pretty discouraging.

It actually started over the Christmas holidays.

One of the requirements we gave to our realtor when searching for a condo last spring was an in-suite laundry.  The apartment had one laundry room with two washers and two dryers, shared by 35 units.  In addition, it was expensive: $2.50 for a washing load (more if you wanted warm or hot water); $2.25 for an hour's drying - 25¢ for each additional eight minutes.

After a couple of decades of my own machines, working out how not to piss people off was a challenge.  They certainly pissed me off: students who stuffed everything into the machines together -- cushions, duvets, underwear -- and people who failed to clear out the machine, but were enraged if you cleared their stuff out in desperation.

The siren call of "home" when I first saw this condo loosened my resolve. The laundry rooms were an odd set-up: three tiny laundry-rooms with a washer and dryer each, on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. (We're on the second floor.) Fifty cents per use, so a dollar for one load.

The machines are older, and don't show how much time is remaining, so I leave a post-it note saying when I turned the machine on.

I've been hoping to start a trend. Nuthin' doing, but I found the sharing civil enough.

Until three or four weeks ago, when, on two occasions, I found an unoccupied laundry room, put in my laundry, set the timer on my phone to return promptly, left a note saying when I'd started the washer ----- and returned to find someone had poached the dryer while my clothes were in the washing machine. I thought this was a thoughtless and unneighbourly thing to do, and left another post-it note saying so, before searching the building for a free dryer. (And no, I didn't poach it from another user.)

In the month that has passed, I felt I had got over my indignation, and no more poaching seemed to occur. To me, anyway.

Yesterday, I decided to put a load of towels in. I only dare do the towels every two or three weeks, but it had been a few weeks since the last contretemps, so I was feeling brave. On the fourth floor, where the best dryer is, the dryer was in use, but warm to the touch, which usually means it's getting toward the end of the set time, which is one hour. The washer takes a half hour, and when I returned, the dryer was still. It was full of towels. I carefully draped these -- about five bathsheets and half a dozen smaller sizes, over the rack, carefully separating one not-quite-dry towel to a separate rung, so it wouldn't dampen the dry items, and would have a better chance to air out. I put my towels into the dryer, started the machine, and left my usual post-it note, noting the time and date.

The Resident Fan Boy, back from a voice lesson with younger daughter, accompanied me for the "half-hour check", where we remove dry items so the rest has a fighting chance. To our horror, there was another post-it note beside mine, scrawled with large and angry writing. I had apparently used the two quarters left in the coin-cradle by the previous user, who had intended to run the towels through a second cycle, and thought leaving the coins would be a clear signal of his/her intentions.

H/she hadn't reckoned with my mind. I had been surprised, when I had gone to put my money in, to find 50¢ already there, but figured, knowing myself, that I had put them in place without knowing.

NOT VERY FRIENDLY!! bellowed the post-it note. The towels I'd draped over the rack were gone.

I grabbed another post-it note and scribbled: "Absolutely unintentional! I'm sorry! I've left two quarters -- if you come back!" And thought to myself: Really? Leaving two quarters in the slots holds your place? Really? Using two hour-long drying cycles when someone else is in the queue?

I didn't write that, of course. It would use too many post-it notes, aside from enraging whoever-this-is further.

Both the RFB and elder daughter are sure the interloper is the same person whom I admonished by post-it note at Christmas.

I rather hope they're right. These are three incidents, and I hate the idea of three households waiting to ambush me with baseball bats, but that's a little extreme.

Isn't it?

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

In October 2007, I took the twenty-minute stroll from my house to Beechwood Cemetery and, facing west from the Tommy Douglas monument, took this snap:

2007

Not quite nine years later, I went to the same spot:

2016

The trees that have flourished in the past decade just about hide the luxury condo that was completed about a year ago, whose tenants now enjoy the view of Parliament Hill that used to be available from the cemetery.

You can click on the photos to enlarge them. If you want.

Christmas March

Normally, when I head out for an afternoon walk on Christmas Day, I enjoy the peace of the seemingly deserted neighbourhood, an oasis of winter quiet in the centre of the pleasant, but slightly excessive sensory overload at home.

However, this year, Christmas Day seemed to have slid into March. Rain throughout Christmas Eve had been blasted out by a nighttime gale. The Resident Fan Boy said it sounded like the house was coming down. After an evening of frantic gift-wrapping, I had slept through it.

The afternoon brought strange yellowy sunshine and brownish-grey clouds rolling on gusts of damp wind. It resembled late winter/early spring in Hades - never my favourite time of year.

I tried to take comfort and joy from the Christmas lights clinging to stripped branches.

I thought a stroll by the Rideau River might do the trick, but I quickly realized that wet melting pewter-coloured ice with muddy puddles and my street shoes would be a perilous combination, and the Accent Snob and I turned around and made our way back through the bleak streets.

On the last side street before home, I saw bright globes in the gutter glaciers.

They had been whipped from this tree. (You can see the uppermost ornament being blown outward.) I rescued the baubles from the street and placed them in a porch corner, before continuing on to prepare Christmas dinner, feeling rather depressed and disappointed.

Oddly enough, when I headed out this afternoon on Boxing Day, taking the same route, the air felt gentler, the light softer. I exchanged pleasantries with my fellow dog-walkers (pretty well the only people abroad), and, booted this time, made my way along the riverbank where ducks hopped up onto the parts of the water that were still frozen over. I felt a whole lot better, and so lucky that there are twelve days of Christmas.

So many opportunities to get it right.

Leave it to Kafka

There were hints in yesterday's horoscope about how today might turn out:  This is a poor day to ask bosses, parents, teachers and VIPs for permission or approval.  Trust me.  Save your breath.  The response will be rejections, criticism or at best skepticism.  Someone older might question your ability or technique.  Try to sidestep this if you can. 

While this was not precisely what happened, I should have known better than to attempt to renew our passports.

I had planned everything carefully.  We had filled out the documents, included new photos and old passports.  I had birth certificates for the three of us. All this carefully tucked in a ziplock bag with the bus itinerary I had printed up to get myself from our house in north-east Ottawa to the new (to us) passport office somewhere near the Hog's Back.  I checked and re-checked while standing at the bus stop, removing and replacing my mittens.  My fingers were pink as I took my seat.  I stuffed my mittens down the front of my parka to take the chill off and tucked my hands against the skin under my sleeves until my thumbs ached less and my cuticles burned only a little.

The Passport Office is a long, low greyish structure sticking out incongruously from an older small mall.  It looks like a bunker.  It's not much better inside.  Rows of plastic benches painted a metallic silver in the centre, numbered kiosks on two walls with desks for filling forms along another wall.  The queue is by the remaining wall, of course.

I joined the line-up to have my documents grouped and my number assigned, then took a place on a stretch of empty bench, listening to the howls and squeals of half a dozen infants and toddlers.  I would have listened to my iPod, but I was in the midst of a recording of the 2011 BBC radio dramatization of Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, set in the Soviet Union of World War Two and rife with bleak institutions, heartless bureaucracy, and snow. Appropriate listening perhaps, but I was feeling alienated enough.  The only natural light came from the skylight, which was largely covered with - well - snow, of course.

I kept my eyes on the lighted panels waiting for my combination of letters and numbers to flash up.  After a bit more than half an hour, they did and I made my way to the indicated gate.  No one was there.  I peered around the partitions and double-checked the number at the station. My processor appeared suddenly from beneath the counter where she had been filing or rummaging.  She looked rather like Tina Fey on a grim day.

I carefully laid out my documents in front of her:  three filled-out applications with the newly expired passports.
"Do you have photo ID such as a driver's license?"
I stared at her momentarily.  I may have gaped a little.
"I don't drive.  That's why I use my passport for ID."
"Do you have something else with your address on it?  Maybe a bill?"
I rummaged in my bag, but knew it was no use.  I don't carry my bills around, and the Ontario Health card stopped including an address years ago, presumably for "privacy" reasons.
"Is there anything about this on the web site?" I asked in despair.
"Well, I'm not sure, but there should be.  Who are you submitting these applications for?"
"My husband and daughter."
"Do you have letters of authorization?"

My heart sank even further.  The last time we renewed, the Resident Fan Boy went in for all three of us and was done in a jiffy.  No one asked for authorization.

I had put my health card back in my bag, but she asked to see it again and typed figures into her machine, popping a small sheet with my new passport photo pasted to it for me to sign.  I suspected she was going to accept this as identification, but said nothing.  Years of dealing with school secretaries have taught me to shut up when something appears to be going through.

I made notes of the requirements for these letters of authorization which would need to be faxed, and finally tottered away, feeling squished and processed.  I quickly texted the RFB, and headed for the bus stop.  If I didn't hurry, I would miss the connection and be late picking up younger daughter from school.

My cell phone went off as I peered down the road through the snow blowing in my face.  It was the Resident Fan Boy in full  and disbelieving fuss.  I gave a few more details, then told him the bus was coming.  I don't do well with multi-tasking.

In my seat and rechecking where I would need to change buses, the phone went off again.  This never happens.  No one calls me; they always text.  It was elder daughter phoning from Halifax, so this had to be an emergency.

See, she learned last week that her internship for her fourth year journalism degree was going to be with with CBC in London.  The one in England.  The longed-for dream.  This is set for April and gives precious little time to fulfill the requirements for a British visa.

She had had an appointment with a Bank of Montreal manager that day to acquire an official letter (with letterhead, according to the stipulations) assuring the powers that be that she has sufficient funds -- especially since this is an unpaid position.  The reason  she needed an appointment is because when she went into her local bank last week and made the request, the lady at the counter thought a photo-copy with a business card stapled to it would do the trick.

However, this was not why she was phoning.  The visa application also requires "biometrics" (fingerprints) performed at an appropriate lab.  Good thing there is such a lab in Halifax -- except there are no slots available until April and the application has already been submitted.

"Well," the lady on the phone told my incredulous daughter, "we have offices in St John's, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver."  (For those of you unfamiliar with Canadian geography, all of these cities are in different time zones from Halifax.)

I had to make that transfer, and hastily told despairing daughter that we'd work something out.

Trudging up the long avenue in the wake of a cortège of roaring snow-trucks and ploughs, I thought of the radio version of Life and Fate again, with its mournful bayan theme music, and a character applying for a residence permit, only to be told by the authorities that she must have a letter from her employer.  Her employer can't write the letter without permission from the office that supplies the permits and the authorities refuse to give permission, yet demand the letter.

"How's your day going?" inquired the vice-principal at younger daughter's school.
"Kafkaesque."
She looked blank.  She teaches social studies and P.E.
When I explained, she nodded.  Ministry of Education officials had just been in.

It was only when I got home that I realized one of younger daughter's given names was misspelled -- although spelled correctly on the application, the expired passport, and her birth certificate which I had provided. The Resident Fan Boy made a note of this in the letter of authorization.

Elder daughter flies in from Halifax tomorrow.  Her appointment at the Ottawa lab is on Friday.  She flies back Sunday.  I wonder if she's considered committing a crime in Halifax so that they'd take her fingerprints.  Of course, that would probably negate the visa....

Resistance always has meaning

It's been a strange, blocked sort of week, with sad edgings of loss.

Among other things, one of the Resident Fan Boy's aunts-by-marriage is slipping away.  We received emails and texts over the weekend from her daughter, asking us to send her a "funny card".  Aunt-by-Marriage used to send us sort of care packages at Christmas, filled with bolts of fabric, ties her husband didn't want, and clipped New Yorker cartoons, so I dropped by the local bookstore and picked out two New Yorker cartoon greeting cards and let the RFB choose. He filled it with an innocuous note of recent family doings, not wishing to scribble "Hello, auntie, we hear you're at death's door…."

Remembering how long it's likely to take a card to reach San Diego, I took it to the post office yesterday to see how quickly they could send it and for how much.  The young man shook his head sympathetically.  For fifty bucks, it could be there in a day; for twenty-five, three days.  I opted for the latter, because despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn't countenance fifty dollars to send a greeting card. It isn't that funny.

It was only when I got home that I remembered that the Resident Fan Boy's dearly departed uncle would have had his birthday today and Aunt-by-Marriage could very well time her departure to coincide with this (it wouldn't be the first time, for either side of the family), so maybe I should have splurged.

The reason I remembered DDU's birthday is because we have a pile-up of birthdays on February 4th: one of my nephews, a distant cousin, and Demeter.  For the past week, I've been trying to knuckle down and write a letter of acceptable length to enclose in her card.  I know she would prefer that above any other gift.  Somehow, I'm blocked.

There's a book on writing I've always loved entitled Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Klauser. One of her banners is "Resistance Always Has Meaning".  As I sat in the study this evening, chatting with Demeter by Skype (which may be why I lack subject matter for letters right there), and listening to younger daughter moan and groan her way through a homework assignment while the Accent Snob cowered behind my knees, I found myself wondering rather bleakly:  "Meaning for whom?"

Poor Demeter.  February is not the greatest month for a birthday.  I wish I could have been in Victoria, taking her out to dinner, giving her a card, not having to write a letter….

Meanwhile, midnight is approaching and there's no word from San Diego.  Maybe Aunt-by-Marriage will stay long enough to get her card.  And decide that it definitely wasn't worth it.

Enervation

So many things I would have done -- the clouds got in my way.Stuff from left field again. I drugged myself with family research and funny videos on YouTube, and every time I stopped, the pain came seeping back like a burned finger. I won't burden you with it.

Bred of an airy word

Logic tells me awful moments like these don't last forever, but when you're in them, time, like space, has a way of stretching vertically as well as horizontally into infinity.

And how did it begin, this civil brawl, bred of an airy word by me, o mummy? This morning as I pinned up younger daughter's hair in preparation for her swimming lesson, she groaned. "This is going to be a bad day." I was baffled, but in a bit of a hurry.

Nothing bad at swimming lesson. Younger daughter executed some admirable dolphin kicks, and did well treading water in preparation for her Red Cross Level Eight endurance requirement. She was excited that it was a water slide day and unhesitatingly zoomed down twice.

Afterward, she was withdrawn and tired, so I took my most recent tack and tactfully withdrew to read the paper in the lounge, leaving her to finish dressing. Unfortunately, younger daughter's change time has been slowly increasing over the summer. What used to take twenty-five minutes now takes thirty-five. As not one but two buses whizzed off downtown when we finally left the rec centre, I turned to her in mild exasperation and said: "You know, we'd have caught those buses, but you're taking a bit too long in the change-room."

Sigh. I forgot that I was talking to a premenstrual fourteen-year-old on the autistic spectrum. By the time we boarded the bus, she had advanced from indignant to furious, and about halfway through the long, long bus ride (because we'd missed those two other buses) she had graduated to heart-broken sobs. When this kind of thing happens, talking is of very little use. I've learned through hard experience that it simply feeds into the maelstrom of her injured feelings. So I sat there, feeling the gaze of our fellow passengers on the crowded bus (being packed with ESL students from the summer programmes at UVic, of course), and sensing the unspoken "Why aren't you doing something?".

Our plan had been to return items to the library, eat at her favourite restaurant, then do a bit of grocery-shopping. We got off the bus, and she stalked ahead of me to the corner. I had decided the quiet courtyard behind the coffee shop might be an opportunity for her to cool down, so waited by the entrance until she noticed I was not following her. I gestured her to follow me, and she dashed by me to the other end of the plaza where a passage by an optometrist leads back to the street. I sat down and waited for her to notice I was not behind her. Eventually I heard sobs and saw pedestrians exit the passage, looking over their shoulders. I got up and went to investigate, being joined at the same time by the woman from the optometrist's.

"Are you her mother?"
"Yes," I nodded.
"What's the matter?"
"She's upset," I replied, politely but concisely, hoping she'd take the hint. She stood by, while I talked to my daughter.
"How can we solve this?"
"I don't know!"
"You're stuck in your bad feelings?"
"Yes?"
"How long will you feel like this?"
"Forever!"
"Oh. That's a very long time."
"I know it's a long time, Mom!"
"Can you tell me why you're so upset?"
"I...I....I...... I miss Daddy!"
I felt something relax in our observer.
"Can I do anything to help?" (People say this. I'm not sure why. Because they can't think of anything else to say?)
I decided to focus this back to younger daughter: "The lady is asking whether you need help. Do you want to say 'Yes, please' or 'No, thank-you'?"

After the optometrist departed, we continued our stalemate. I told younger daughter we couldn't go to the library unless she calmed down. I stepped into Broughton Street and daughter headed east toward the library. I waited until she noticed I wasn't following. And there we were standing about ten yards apart. When I moved toward her, she retreated, and when I turned back toward Douglas Street, she gingerly followed. Every time I tried to speak, she turned her back and grimaced, rather like the Peanuts kids do in the animated Charlie Brown specials. Two Taurus at an impasse. It seem to be endless, but probably wasn't much more than five minutes.

Finally, I decided to walk toward the library. She carefully kept her distance and studied an exhibit while I sort the library items into the bins. When she entered the library, I followed her to the children's section and sort of non-directed her to the DVD section while I took a seat. After she stood irresolutely for some time, I ventured to ask her if she wanted help. Gradually, we eased into what passes for normality for us, and I felt brave enough to lead her through the planned itinerary.

Seated in the Dutch Bakery, her favourite diner, she murmured: "I'm sorry."
"Pardon?"
"I'm sorry; I did a terrible thing today."
"What was that?"
"I slept too late."
She had been up in plenty of time, but I had had to rush her a little through breakfast.
"Then I said rude things on the bus."
"You were very angry."
"Yes and you told me to leave you alone. Never say that to me again!"

I had, in my despair, mumbled, "Oh, Leave me alone," when her shouting and crying had made me want to leap off at the next bus stop and leave her there. But a person on the autistic spectrum takes things very literally, and although she's told me to leave her alone a hundred times, when I say it, it means abandonment and that I will never love her again. Even as she ordered her food, I could see her face still on that brink of crumpling into tears.

As we left the restaurant amicably, she was humming to herself and stimming slightly, and the little old ladies stared.

Lawyers, guns and money

So what do you do when the world seems to be going a little nuts? Or at least a little more nuts than usual. We woke up to a pall of smoke over Hades, from forests fires around Le Tuque, Québec. That's about 200 miles away. People actually called firefighters in Ottawa to investigate where the smoke was coming from. Nuthin' on the news about it, because CBC was going on about the economy (better) and British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico (catastrophic). Then Israel killed some people on boats bringing relief supplies to the Gaza. (Apparently they now "regret" this.)

Furthermore, we just learned of a family crisis concerning a close friend in Victoria, and a scary health and safety crisis affecting one of elder daughter's pals. The latter appears to want no action taken. But he might die. Oh...Crud...

While I'm mulling over moral consequences, I need mood music. How about the late great Warren Zevon? Here's "Lawyers Guns and Money" (which about covers it) performed by Zevon's son Jordan and Bob Dylan's son Jacob:

It's an ill wind that blows no good

You know how I was saying that elder daughter has been touring Leipzig? I didn't get around to mentioning that the rest of band trip included Dresden and a three-day stay in Prague, including an evening at The Magic Flute, but I'm not bitter. No, no, I'm happy for her, really, really happy....

The phone rang at about 9:30 this morning. I was in the bathroom and missed it, but the Resident Fan Boy picked it up. Due to the British Airways cabin crew strike, elder daughter and her fellow high school band-mates, en route to Hades from a tour of Leipzig, Dresden and Prague, all fifty-six of them, are stranded. In London. For two-and-a-half days.

They seem remarkably unfazed by this. I wonder if the same could be said of their chaperones?

Recipe for a less-than-stellar evening

1. Family who has invited us to a barbecue kennels their dog for the evening, citing dog's over-excitability and danger of nipping.
2. Dog-worshipping younger daughter is informed of this at the beginning of the twenty-five-minute car journey to the house and spends the trip in a pall of disappointment, not having seen the dog in two years.
3. Aging mother/mother-in-law of host couple asks me after dinner if I plan to put younger daughter in a group home.
4. I wander off for a solo stroll to weep and regain my equilibrium and wonder in passing if kennelling is this family's solution for everything.

Other than that, our summer stay in Victoria has been quite lovely, thank-you.

And it's gone too!

Decided to spend my birthday afternoon listening to my new Last.fm station. Lots of my favourite songs. Lovely. I was rather puzzled by a new sign about a free subscription. Isn't Last.fm a free service? I thought to myself, but dismissed it, thinking they were referring to the benefits of the paid subscription, which hold no allure for me. About twenty minutes ago, the music died. Puzzled, I clicked around and found this:

. . .listeners to Last.fm Radio outside of the USA, UK and Germany will be asked to subscribe for €3.00 per month, after a 30 track free trial period. In the USA, UK and Germany, where it’s feasible to run an ad-supported radio service, there won’t be any changes. Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.

I didn't get enough time to decide if I liked Last.fm enough to pay nearly $40 a year to listen to it, and frankly, I'm a bit ticked off at being penalized for failing to live in the UK, the US, or Germany.

Happy birthday to me...