Today's Treasured Word

And today's favourite word is 'fussgesundheit' (brought on by two days of wearing my Birkenstocks).

Runway Squirrel

I have a terrible yen for elegant, high-heeled, chocolate brown shoes.

Off to a Rocky Start

I am off to a rocky start in my wine-making endeavours.

A number of months ago, I joined a small wine-making collective, for fun, frolic, and of course, homemade wine. Recently, it was my turn to go and buy the wine kit. "Red", they said. Off I went to the winemaking supply store.

On a whim - and with visions of eighteenth century romantic tete-a-tetes in dim parlours festooned with curtains - I purchased a blackberry red wine kit. 'Cassis!', I thought.

The minute I arrived home thrilled with my find, my food snob husband said, "What did you buy THAT for?" Humphh! Thou shalt not rain on my new hobby parade, ruffian.

Making the wine seemed to go fine, and it sat in the carboy for a very long time. We bottled it a month ago, and tasting it at the time, I thought it had a very sharp, zippy bite. Oh well.

Taking it to a party and letting people taste it resulted in comments such as, "It's...um...like drinking warm jam..." Sigh...

And the pinnacle of my success was achieved last week, when bottles popped open on their own in four different houses across the city, spilling purple wine everywhere, because somehow the wine was carbonated like champagne. What a mess.

I'm drinking from the remaining bottles, because it makes an excellent summer sangria, but perhaps I should sit back and let other people pick the kits for a while.

Madagascar, the Movie

Do you remember Alex, the lion in the animated movie Madagascar, when he does his roaring thing in the zoo in New York and the crowd goes wild? Well that was me at work last week. I could do no wrong.

In a four-hour shift on Wednesday morning, three separate people asked my name so that they could shake my hand and say thank you for the service. And a fourth guy - intrepid local newspaper reporter, no less - said to me, "You're better than the Internet. No, no, you, personally, are better than the Internet."

It doesn't get much better than that on the library reference desk.

And all this just as I was toying with the idea of switching from the public library to a technical college library. Isn't that how it always works. If you consider leaving, or if you actually do, then suddenly they love you.

Am terribly conflicted. My interview for the college job was the day after all my sweet roaring, and so my heart really wasn't in it. I am not expecting them to call me with an offer any time soon.

At the same time, I am waiting for a sign from God about which path to take. Perhaps three good handshakes in one morning is the clearest sign I'm going to get.

Delicious!

Some good fairy left a beautiful old squirrel postcard on my desk yesterday. Sleek squirrel, standing tall on someone's hand, eating the remains of an ice-cream cone. All my favourite things together in one place - intrepid squirrels, ice cream, togetherness.

Thank you, mystery man. Or mystery ma'am.

O Frabjous Day!

Calloo, callay!

Saskatoon used to have no squirrels, as far as I knew.

But there. Today. In an actual tree. In my own actual front yard. An actual squirrel.

And he was gorgeous.

He was sleek and agile, all graceful pauses and bursts of speed. Like a tiny James Bond in a red furry suit, don't you know, dahlingk.

Come again soon, squirrel of mystery.

Semantics

I had a hoot helping someone last week, to find books by a Carlton Mellick III. Let's call our patron Young Surfer Dude.

"You probably won't have any of his books, because they're pretty dirty," Surfer Dude said.

"Well," I replied, "We do have some books with explicit content, so you never know."

Indeed, we don't have any of Mellick's books. I offered to do an interlibrary loan for a title or two, and we looked up Mellick's oeuvre on Global Books in Print.

"All his books are filthy," Young Surfer Dude commented, as the list of titles loaded up. "I don't read porn," he said, "but I like to read filth." Although I was dying to know the difference between porn and filth, I missed my opportunity to ask.

As I wrote up an interlibrary loan form for the title 'Razor Wire Pubic Hair', I mentioned that he'd be giving the ladies in the back a good giggle with his choice of titles.

"Whatever makes your day more entertaining," Young Surfer answered, with a nod and a grin.

Dude.

Squirrel in Action!

Good God, they's photos of me on the 'net! Squirrels usually move too fast to get photographed.

Uh huh.

It's a Meme

I have been ducking this whole meme thing for quite a while because I didn't really get it, but today I think perhaps that I will play along. Without tagging anyone else. If you feel you must jump on the bus along with me, feel free.

Sleeves has called me out to post five things that make me very, very happy whenever I encounter them. Et voila:

1. Holding my sleeping child.
2. Juicy news (usually about curious job postings or fabulous houses for sale).
3. Extended, undisturbed time alone to strip furniture or make stained glass.
4. The breathtaking beauty of autumn leaf colours on the riverbank.
5. A roll-on-the-floor belly laugh.

Tales from Small-Town Saskatchewan: The Glensite Wave

Waving from trucks. Who knew it had cultural properties?

Where I grew up in Lead.r, people spent a lot of time driving around town. Every time you passed someone else's vehicle, you would wave to them in the special Lead.r way: without removing your hand from the wheel, you would lift one finger off the steering wheel - slowly and with attitude - and then you would set it down again.

Now many years later, my sister moved to the town of Glensite, SK. In Glensite, they do things altogether differently! They still drive around town, mind you, but the wave is unique. To do a proper Glensite wave, you whip your whole arm straight up in a quick, smooth motion, with your palm facing backwards, as if you were throwing a very light ball upwards and backwards, and then you drop your arm back to its original position.

One fateful day after she had been living in Glensite for a while, my sister decided to show us what the Glensite wave looks like. She whipped her arm up. She dropped it down. Perfectly executed.

Unfortunately, she was wearing a little shorty shirt at the time, and flashed us her boob for one shocking split-second. Zut alors.

The Glensite wave. Not for the faint of heart.