Fading

Elder daughter shows up tomorrow. 

This is fabulous, of course, but I'm nowhere near ready, so seized the opportunity today to locate the box with the Christmas wrapping bags and stockings in it, which I stored under several boxes in a corner of our bedroom.  My rationale was that, instead of having to retrieve it from our storage locker, it would be more accessible.

I hadn't factored in the possibility of a fall, and the consequent pain and fatigue.  Oh, I'm getting better.  By centimetres.  I find that every time I tackle a project requiring actual energy, I'm reduced to a quivering mass in less time than it takes to accomplish the task.  This is a heckuva problem, considering Christmas is coming, and this requires finishing gift-shopping, wrapping said gifts, preparing Christmas tourtières, and cleaning the damn house.

It's still a shock when the fatigue wipes me out like a chalk drawing.  It's a bit like being pregnant again.  To what am I giving birth? (I have a nasty feeling it's a much older version of myself.)

Meanwhile, the Resident Fan Boy has noticed more people are asking him to speak up.  He didn't think much of it until younger daughter, who has the hearing of a fruit bat, and can hear what we say from her bedroom with the door closed and our television on - particularly when we're discussing her - also starting asking him to speak up.  His fellow cathedral volunteers opine that this is wide-spread, and a result of a combination of isolation and ZOOM meetings.

I guess that, along with everything else, our diaphragms are atrophying from not having to talk boisterously to one another out of doors.

No wonder I find the cyclists at the coffee shop so loud and obnoxious.

The squeal of the Sciurini

I've spent a chunk of this past month listening to the prancing and pawing of each little roofer. Well, they were actually very large sturdy chaps, the kind who probably do well picking up women at bars. Still, they were fairly loud: "Stomp...Crash...scrrrrape...."

They were redoing our roof, and reopening our hatch, so, instead of climbing a wobbly extendable metal ladder to do maintenance, we can climb a wobbly shorter ladder and haul ourselves up through a dark hole while attempting to push up the hatch-lid. I'm not exactly looking forward to the prospect of this as a yearly ritual, but I got a third of the way up the aforesaid extendable ladder one balmy evening last week before realizing that the hatchless option was not going to work for me. I retreated on shaky legs and in deep shame while the aforesaid sturdy chaps chuckled, not unkindly.

They're gone now, leaving a new roof and dead vines drooping down the front of the house, so I cleared away the obstacles barring the entryway to the dusty, drafty bedroom balcony we never use, shouldered a large pair of secateurs and set out to prune the dangling doomed bits of Virginia Creeper. I found myself eye-to-eye with an indignant squirrel who had been using several winding tendrils of dropped vine to create a large nest on a ledge next to the balcony. She flattened herself on the stucco and hung on the wall defiantly, chattering rodent threats. I didn't have the heart to shove her nest over the precipice, so trimmed away at any lifeless vegetable matter within reach.

I carefully shut all doors leading to the upstairs balcony and trotted downstairs to sweep the front path of debris resulting from my trimming and Ms Squirrel's housekeeping. I saw some trailing wilting ends within arm's reach and started giving them a good yank. I had to leap backward as the squirrel's concoction, a large tangle of vine, chewed up newpaper and what looked like a head-sized gauze bandage, plummeted down the side of the house. I looked up and the squirrel peered back at me from the edge of the roof, seemingly frozen in shock.

As I set back to work, the keening started: Skree (five second interval) Skreee (five second interval) Skreeeeeeee...

I'm a monster.

This is me getting defiant

Yep. I know that's a Welsh flag. And I know it's bloody St Patrick's Day. How do I know? I saw a woman strolling through the Canadian War Museum wrapped in a sparkly green boa (I actually think it was a Christmas tree garland). I watched people traipsing up the canal in Cat-in-the-Hat type bonnets, only with green stripes. I watched as people in green shirts and bright green Mardi Gras beads, for gawd's sake, got an early start to their drinking and drug-bingeing at the bus stop. At 7:15 pm.

Fine. Celebrate Ottawa's historic Irish heritage (due largely to thousands of Irish labourers dying off while digging the Rideau Canal) by getting as messily drunk as possible. However, I feel bound to point out that there is evidence that St Patrick was actually Welsh. And I never see anyone making a fuss over St David's Day. Come to think of it, that may be a blessing, though I imagine March 1st is just another excuse to get drunk in Cardiff...