Dad--The CoverBoy

[Kate:]

Dad was on the cover of the technology section of the Saint John Telegraph-Journal. I mean, not just like a crappy little sub article, but like, the huge one! And there's a really big picture of him. He didn't even tell me! I was reading through it, and I found one part that says as follows: "My daughter, Kate, is the best. She's kind and has a great sense of humor. And to celebrate our house being sold, I'm raising her allowance to $50 a week." I was really ecstatic when I read that section. I'm kidding. You know that, though. Hopefully.

I guess the more important fact is that we sold the house. It's completely done, but that's all I really know. So yeah, we're happy and we celebrated by having cake and playing music. This kind of happened when I was hanging out with Krista on our third sleepover! Of course we accomplished another Nancy Drew interactive computer game (Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon).

We're hitting Zellers, the Canadian K-Mart/Wal-Mart, now. TTYL!

LOVE, Kate

The Drones

[Erik:]

The home we rent has a large, unfinished basement that runs the whole length of the house. It was quite empty for weeks when we first moved here--our regular readers may recall that our household goods took approximately one-and-a-half geologic epochs to get here. Now it is chock full of said household goods--the stuff that we don't need immediately (ever?), that can wait until we move into a more permanent home.

In one corner of this basement is a big ol' woodstove (a Wood Chief). Our landlords, when they were still in residence here, would burn it on weekends--Mr. Landlord is very handy and would work on furniture projects on his workbench while the stove was ablaze. When we moved in, they told us to feel free to use it as a backup heat source, and to use up all their wood (and there were probably a good 3 to 3.5 cords of excellent dry firewood down here, very generous of them).

Mr. Landlord had also cut two vents into the living room floor, so some of the heat would go up there. Now, not long after we got here, I was looking around in the basement, stroking the old beard (always a catalyst for musing), and I thought, "Hey...if I hung a couple tarps from the rafters, I could make a little 12' x 12' room around the stove. It's a small house, so an extra Room of Leisure would be a plus, and the contained space would warm up nicely. In fact, it would push much more heat up through the vents, too--sweet!" [Cognitive note: I did not actually think those words, but rather some imaginative-conceptual-image thingies. But those don't make for good narrative. If I do ever start thinking in deliberate sentences, and I begin my sentences with, "In fact," then I will slap myself. Carry on...]

So, I did just that, wayyy back in January. The tarps I got were perfect: just the right size, blue on one side and silver on the other. I made silver the interior, so as to reflect the light. Oh, yeah, furnishings: one floor-lamp, one table lamp on this square table the landlords left down here, two camp chairs, and a leftover rectangle of beige carpet that covers most of the concrete floor in one half of the room. Behold The Drones (as seen from without):

















And look at all those boxes--not looking forward to another move, oy. I'm down in The Drones right now with Stella, who is sulking over the arrival of That New [insert stream of feline invective] Kitty (see Kate's previous blog entry, and surely more entries to come). Oh well, we knew she was going to have a cow, whaddaya do? Stella and Lily will never be fast friends, but I hope we can get to "forced peace" before long.

The Drones, by the bye, takes its name from Bertie Worcester's gentlemen's club in the P. G. Wodehouse books about Jeeves and Worcester. It is a Place of Repose from the World, where all one needs is a warm fire, a cat, the Globe & Mail, and maybe a pint of suds. (Or a glass of wine and a cozy mystery, if you happen to be the blogger's wife. That's a real sub-genre, by the way--"cozy" mysteries. I keep thinking Kimm has read them all, but she keeps finding more.)

Erik relaxing, "where time comes dropping slow":

















We tend to fire up The Drones mainly on snowy nights. And funny thing, those seemed to be declining, and then...well, we've had something of a chilly resurgence in April so far, with snowfall both weekends. I wrote in an earlier entry about Sheila's Brush being a snowstorm around St. Patrick's Day, so I don't know what these post-Easter snowfalls are...Sheila's Carpet-beating??

None of this snow is lasting, though, as the days are all above freezing, now. Friends and family in the South are having all kinds of fun teasing us--"It's in the low 80s today, the azaleas are out," yadda yadda. 'Sokay, come August there will be days when I say, "It's in the upper 70s today, how y'all making out with 98?"

Here's a small album with some more Drones pics, plus other photos I never got around to posting from my b-day in March:

The Drones; Erik's b-day in March

And Now for Something Completely Different: a Bird-Feeder the Size of a Tree:

















(It sometimes goes on rampages around the metropolis.)

New Feline Resident

[Kate (The Best One):]

We just brought home Lily! I'm so excited. She's our new furry friend that we picked up minutes ago. She's so pretty--there's a sprinkle of black on her head but other than that she's pure white. Mom and I (Sheehan's at school, dad's at work) were able to sneak her in without Stella seeing--but you can tell Stella knows somethings going on. So here's the name stuff: At first I really didn't like Lily. I mean, come on, it's so normal for a cat! We could have chosen something funny, or my favorite name, 'Bridgette'. The family had been arguing over names for hours. I liked Lilly Pulitzer okay, but finally, after much controversy, we decided on "Liliana Poutine Moore" (Lily). For the Americans who haven't heard of poutine, it's French fries with cheese curds and gravy on top. Talk about Heart Attack Platter!! Anyway, dad lets me call her Lilly Pulitzer. I love cat accessories shopping. I found this really cute electric pink pet carrier, but a)it was for a dog, b)mom hated it, c)Sheehan really hated it, and d)if dad had been at the store at that time I knew he would have loathed it. Anyway, we got her snacks and a toy, too. Since she was spayed yesterday, I haven't been able to give her the toy yet. Alright, I'm going to go kiss her again.

Kate

[Sheehan:]

It's April 5, and Kate and I are on a snow day. Didn't think I'd ever say that! So now our Easter weekend is five days long, which is fantastic. I'm playing poker at a friend's house tomorrow, and I have a movie night to go to Sunday night.
Grandma and grandpa are leaving this morning for Boston--they fly out on Friday. We had a great time with them this weekend. We did a lot of wandering downtown, and yesterday we went to the Beaverbrook Gallery, which has some amazing art, including a couple of pieces by Dali. Was that sentence a run-on? Maybe it was just awkward. Anydangways, the pictures are on page three of the Freddy album.

À bientôt, -S

1st Sleepover in this Country!!

[Kate:]

Hello, everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. You can't really say I've been busy, but...
School is going well. I'm really regretting the fact that I didn't accept the dance with Tommy, though...anyway. On Saturday I had a sleepover with my friend, Krista. She's the first person I've found that is obsessed with Nancy Drew games, and my first sleepover in this country. It was fun, and we stayed up till 3:30 or 4 (am, of course). Not that anyone keeps up with it, but I made a record by completing an entire Nancy Drew game in one day. And it was the hardest. If you go on Amazon, you'll come across these old men who play them posting comments that they're their worst guilty pleasures. Well, okay, 30 isn't old, but still. And my substitute (they call it supply) teacher for social studies plays then with his wife. So I don't feel so bad. I've found a lot more people play them here, though. And Nancy's American. But who cares? I'm American. Wait, that makes no sense...Well, I'll just stop confusing myself.

I got my first manicure last weekend in this cute apricot/salmon colo(u)r, and today I won a free lipstick at Yves Rocher. Maybe not Yves St. Laurent, but hey. It's a Yves. Fortunately, of course, my metaphysical truth has not been strictly confined to material objects (A Girl Like Moi), so let's change the subject from stuff to church. It is going well, but unfortunately there are already two guys that like me (I do NOT like them back) and a guy that I can't quite tell, both I'd give a 3.5, and the last either a 5 or 6. Uh, sorry dad, I'll change the subject. Everything else in church is nice. I like the preaching style, and the causalness is very similar to TVCF (our church in NC), in a great way, of course. But I was attached to TVCF so it's a little hard to let go. This is like, very close to that in many ways so I do like it. Well, off to watch Gil Mayo! (New investigating show my family has fallen in love with. I always make hot chocolate to pass around, it's fun)

Love,

Kate

This post gets sappy

[Erik:]

As mentioned in my last post, we had planned, on the way back from Houlton, to go to a sapping and syrup-making demonstration at Kings Landing Historical Settlement ("Sugar Bush Weekend" was the official name of the event). We got held up crossing back into Canada, and that was annoying--they told us that Kimm and the kids each needed their own visitor documentation, in addition to my work permit. Mind you, (a) this was exactly contrary to what we had been told before--we specifically asked if they needed papers when the whole family crossed for the first time (together) on January 23rd, and we were told "no," and (b) we have been across the int'l border at least three other times since then, no worries. So, this was a drag, but we got it all worked out, and got to Kings Landing a little later than we had planned.

Once at the settlement, we first sat down to a wonderful "breakfast for lunch," which they were serving all day. Bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, but the pièce de résistance, of course, was a stack of pancakes with syrup just boiled that morning. MMMMMMmmmm...

After we ate, we wandered outside to see the boiling cauldrons of syrup and a demonstration on making maple "candy-on-the-snow," as it's called. We also saw (and tasted) the raw sap from one of the tapped sugar maples--very thin and faintly sweet. As I said to Kimm, it's amazing that someone said, two centuries ago, "Heyyy, we could boil this and make a thick syrup, maybe some candy, who knows?" (Except they probably said it in French, as Quebec has the longest history of maple syrup production.)

We then wandered around the settlement and spent awhile at the mill (watching a lovely half-frozen waterfall), and then it was time for the place to close. I don't feel like making a Proper post today, fie on me, so I'll just link to my Picasa album and you can see the pictures (I'll add a little more in the captions). Voila:

20070324_KingsLanding

Straight outta Compton Houlton

[Erik:]

Some things don't easily forward in the mails from the States to Canada; other things (many magazine subscriptions) could be continued here, but at an added cost; some companies won't ship to Canada, period. For these reasons, we maintain a P.O. box in Houlton, Maine. Houlton is within spitting distance of the international border, right at the northern terminus of I-95, the great Eastern Seaboard conveyor. And it's really not that far from us--75ish miles / 125ish km, a nice hour and 15 minutes' drive along the upper St. John river valley. So, we generally head down that way about once a month to check the mail and putter about. Yesterday was such a day, with additional fun in mind--on the way home, we would stop by Kings Landing, a colonial history re-enactment site, where they were having "Sugar Bush Weekend," demonstrating the whole process of maple sapping and syrup-making. I have givene that it's own separate post. First, a little on Houlton.

Houlton is the county seat of Aroostook County, which is a simply immense, as counties go--it takes up much of northern Maine and is 6829 mi² (17,686 km²). [Virginia family: that's Shenandoah County * 13.3] Sheehan can tell you all about the Aroostook War in the 1830s, having studied it recently (I had forgotten it completely, if I ever knew it at all).

The town strikes me as the northern equivalent of southern mill towns--same semi-gritty feel, same downtown district struggling to hang on, although this one seems just slightly more vibrant than many of its cousins I've seen in the south. That's likely because there are no nearby larger towns with malls (Fredericton would be closest, and on the U.S. side, Bangor is two hours from Houlton).

So, rather than a large mall with a JC Penny's and a monsterplex cinema, Houlton has a small "JC Penny Catalog Merchant" storefront--


















--and the two-screen Temple Theatre (so named because it's in the old Masonic Building).






























And while the ambiance might be a bit depressed in the main(e), there are decidedly non-gritty aspects of Houlton. The pretty Meduxnekeag River (sounds almost like "me DUCK'S in a keg" ...!!) flows right through town, and there are quite a few lovely homes to be found.

We especially like this one:
















Note the outcropping on the right--that would've been the barn, originally (now obviously renovated as living space). Barns up this-a-way are often joined directly to the house, so you don't have to go outside into 57 feet of snow and -89° temps on a January evening. Kimm also says to note the covered plant in the lower left. This is a common practice with certain kinds of more delicate shrubbery.











We had a funny surprise when we learned the name of the public library in Houlton:

















For readers who might not know, our family previously lived in Cary, NC, a suburb of Raleigh (and we frequently walked to the Cary Public Library there). Turns out there's also a Cary, ME, about 10 minutes from Houlton. Odder still, it sits right on US-1...yes, the same US-1 that runs through Cary, NC. And there endeth any similarities, as this Cary du nord is a wee hamlet of 217 souls.

For a few more shots of Houlton, see this web album:

20070324_Houlton