Driving’s tough. A lot of all-season radials are crying on off-ramps. Fools! Even the good drivers stay put -a sensible caution-wanting to avoid the panicked drivers and the silly little all-season radials.

Nevertheless,  it’s a Snow Day. Or, as a five year old friend says: you don’t gotta go day. In the distance, I hear the rumbling of thousands of little feet dancing a dance of freedom. Across the street, little plastic snow shovels are being wielded like weapons. The kids have beaten their snow-ploughshares into swords.

The snow’s lighter than confectioners’ sugar. It won’t stick for a snow man and it won’t keep still for snow angels. It has no balls. There are times when it seems to be sighing more than falling.

And it keeps coming. Our front yard could be the set for Beckett’s “Happy Days” except that the pile is snow -not dirt – and if I were to try to climb it I would plunge to the bottom instead of hanging desperately to its side and sorry for the run-on sentence, but I have no grammar check on this computer.

Other observations on Snow Day: snow suits are cuter, come in better colours, and are less constricting; if they are the same height, you cannot tell one child from another – even your across the street neighbours’ kids; it’s easier to shovel powdery snow 40 times – even all night long, if necessary – than to wake to two feet of slightly melting snow; it’s easier to get rid of  a two foot melting snow pile than the glacier it forms in a Halifax snap-freeze; the guy down the street with the only snowblower on the block a selfish dink; people look very different wearing Russian Red Army hats; plastic bags are not good snow boots; even Oprah Winfrey is interesting after 11 snow shovelling trips and a vodka martini; All- Season tires, in the wrong hands, are very stupid.

We can learn a lot on Snow Day. Except about that the guy down the street. We knew that.

Nice drive out to Ruckles Provincial Park, and a very refreshing walk by the ocean. Saw an otter in the water who seemed interested is us and stuck relatively close. All very satisfying.

More iPhone pics:

The coffee maker will save me from bad coffee on the road, and the worst of the bad (my opinion only – please don’t sue me): Tim Horton’s. My mother, when asked for her take on Tim’s coffee, replied “That coffee is just not my cup of tea”. Mum has a way with words. Hey, here’s a question: why is the Tim’s double-double so popular? Answer: because double cream and double sugar mask the taste of art gum erasers. Don’t ask me how I know.

So I have this little electric espresso maker now, and I will take it on the road with me next week. Last time I travelled, I was lodged in a “all suite” hotel, so I took my little stove-top Bialetti. Took a bag of ground coffee with me, settled into the hotel, had a good nights sleep. Woke the next morning, filled the Bialetti with cold water, put ground coffee in the little receptacle that fits in it, put on the top . Moved toward the stove to turn on the burner. Realized that there was no burner. No stove, in fact. A small microwave was tucked in a corner and I stared at it for what seemed a long time. I don’t know long I stood there – coffee maker in hand, stunned and confused. I know it was long enough to work it through in my mind carefully and come to the decision not to put the shiny bialetti in the microwave. I’m slow at 6:30 in the morning, and on that morning there was some desperation in play.

Word to the wise: not all “all suite” hotels are all suites. They’re “partial suite” hotels. They’re “microwave and beer fridge suite” hotels. They’re “we’ll give you cutlery, wine glasses, plates, bowls, pots and pans but no stove” hotels. They’re “we’ll charge you seven dollars for a bad cup of coffee” hotels. Word to the wise. And wise I’ll be with my new little coffee maker. Slightly smug, too, it’s turning out. I look forward to it all.

As said, second to arrive was the quilt. If I have the family tree standing right, the quilt top was made by my grandfather’s cousin’s wife, deceased a few years back. The quilting was done by her daughter, who, since her mother’s death, has taken on the project of quilting all the tops that her mother was unable to quilt. This one, the one I received today, is the second to last (and as we know from a few blogs back, it’s the penultimate). And it is a beauty. Double wedding ring pattern – lovely in itself – but the quilting is remarkable in that it’s stitched with tiny hearts that one can only see with close examination. Old colourful fabrics and a scalloped edging to give it a finish. These bits of material came from the clothes of relatives, and long ago friends of my mother, I’m guessing. She grew up in the village where the top was stitched and the quilting completed. In fact, now that I think on it, it was sewn in the very house where my mother was born.

This is the picture I see, this is the story I imagine:

A daughter comes home to care for her mother. When her mother dies, she leaves behind 24 quilt tops. The daughter takes them up and quilts every one (well, still one to go…). It takes six years. She again lives in the house where she grew up, the house in which my mother was born, the house in which I watched buttermilk being squeezed from butter and where I counted the dozens of salt and pepper shakers that had been long collected. A house that looks out on a blue like no other, a small harbour that receives the iron-riddled river – the brook, as it was called and what we call it still. A house where my uncle Zen sat outside in the sun – wordless and watchful. I can see it all.

Two great deliveries today. One to look forward. One to look back. I can see it all.

Why? I forgot a password. One of 60 passwords, it turns out. I know the exact number because I opened my “Keychain Access” and counted them. All my passwords evolved from the same word or words and are varied as needed when one or another is rejected by a site because it belongs to someone else. This in itself can cause a quiet harrumph because I must face the shocking reality that I’m not as unique and special as previously believed. So, the addition of a number or sequence of letters, preceding or following said (or unsaid) word usually does the trick. Some combinations I know well, and have no trouble slipping on to the site in mere seconds. Some elude me and frequent attempts with different variations often cause the great wall of security to fall, requiring me to (and I choke at the thought) speak to a person and ask for help. This, for me, is an act of desperation.

Sometimes I forget the password to the password, the secret question, and the hint to the secret question. Is it: my mother’s maiden name; my first pet; my high school; grandfather’s occupation; best friend’s shoe size; date of all-time favourite sneeze; average rainfall of my backyard; my neighbour’s unspoken opinion of me (in one word or less); birth weight of Agnes de Mille?  Sometimes, after these episodes (hours in duration), I forget what site I was trying to enter, and go downstairs to make myself a sandwich. I can do this in about five minutes, unless it’s toasted.

Wading through the purgatory of passwords and pin numbers takes more of my time than should be necessary to do a little banking, book a flight, or check my wireless usage for any given month. Sometimes the password has been saved automatically, sometimes not. Likewise, clicking on the little “remember me” square is sometimes successful, sometimes not. For instance, logging in to write this, I must always enter my password despite having clicked that little “remember me” square every time I want to post something. The site does not remember me. This is insulting – I think my own site should remember me.

Coming back to my chat with the pleasant man from across the seas, I’m please to say that he solved my problem. He re-set my password in approximately five minutes.

About the time it takes to make a sandwich. Unless it’s toasted.

It started with sleeping until I woke. It’s true that I do that most mornings, but it’s especially sweet on a birthday. Even if it’s the same old 7:30 to which I’m accustomed, it’s a joy.

There was exuberance in my partner as she made my coffee. I was exuberant, too, because it was a Saturday birthday and I could anticipate a stretched out day of little kindnesses, loving words and a reprieve from the usual household errands. I remember a friend once told me about his childhood in Illinois where, if Hallowe’en fell on a Saturday, kids could spend all day and evening trick or treating. I bring this same spirit to my birthday if it falls on Saturday. Or Sunday, for the same reasons.

Breakfast was eggs and bread. Beautiful bread. Peerless bread. The ultimate bread (of course, the second to the last piece was the penultimate – I’m annoyed when that word is misused). A chewy bread with a semi-hard crust and pieces of apricot baked within. A bread so good that, because it was spread with butter, I decided to skip the eggs. So, in the interest of honesty on reporting, I rescind my earlier statement about eggs and bread and admit that breakfast was bread, and a bit of butter.

I then checked my email and was delighted to find out that I was successful in my application for a two week residency at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan, November 1^st to 15^th. Stegner’s Angle of Repose is on my top ten reading list. Like Elizabeth Bishop – claimed to be one of the greatest American poets – Wallace Stegner lived in Canada as a child, moving back to the US as a young man and starting his writing career there. Saskatchewan, though, had a great influence on him and his writing. Worth reading. And re-reading.

We drove to the country. I drove to the country, that is. Passenger side directions were kept to a minimum and the lumbar support seemed more supportive than usual. Snow was whiter than it seemed last week. The car used less gas.

Another great treat was in store for me. Serendipitous, unbidden, and rare, so rare.

On the highway that takes us part way to the country before it narrows to an ox-cart trail, I gradually found myself behind a car driving well below the speed limit. Well back from this car, I pulled out to pass, signaling, accelerating gently, filled with the confidence of a conscientious driver who knows full well that they are passing the RIGHT way, the CORRECT way, passing in a way that other drivers could only watch, admire and aspire to. Pardon the dangling preposition.

A casual glance in my rear view mirror revealed a small red car racing toward the slow driver. The slow driver was probably going 90 clicks, I was doing 112-115. Upon my word, this little red car was doing 180. Upon my word, I repeat – which may mean more to some than others.

What occurred next was the red car “threading a needle” as my partner put it, by weaving out from the tail end of  Slow Guy and pulling out in front of us, a slick little maneuver that one had not seen since the Dukes of Hazzard. Not that I watched the Dukes of Hazzard. I did watch the Duchess of Duke Street, but I suspect there were few similarities.

Swerving, fishtailing and braking followed, but not in that order and not by the Red Car. Swerving, braking, swearing and fist shaking. And the perennial cry of all who have been wronged on the road: where are the Mounties when you need them? Or want them, even?

But that day, my birthday, the great Mountie in the sky heard the swearing (which could be taken for prayer, I suppose, given the roar of the highway) and knew it was a special day. For, three of kilometers later, as we turned a long bend, the blue and red lights blinked rapidly from the shoulder of the road, broadcasting for all to know: someone has been pulled over.

As we passed the little red car, the driver having a sober chat with the Mountie, we waved with great zeal at the driver and the three other toque-heads with him. Was this not, short of my brother-in- law taking my sister to Paris for her 50^th,  a great birthday gift?

Call me mean. Call me guilty of schadenfreude. Any other day of the year, I would admit that. But not on my birthday.

Later that day we had cake, a decent merlot and I received several birthday calls.  I did the New York Times crossword and retired early, happy and grateful.

Happy Birthday to me.

I was the noisiest creature there, snapping off dead limbs from bushes and small trees. The shish of ski pants, my snowshoes snapping up from the heel. I was gasping a bit, too and I know that I yelped when I fell once. When I stopped to rest, the woods were so quiet I could hear some old trees creaking, and a bird now and then. Nice to be alone in the woods on days like that.  As I write this, I can hear the humming of my computer and the ticking of my fingers on the keyboard. My chair squeaks a little. Nice to be alone in the office on a day like this. I hear sounds – no noise.

But it’s a day of errands for me and I’ll be heading out soon. First, the bank, where they’ve started to play background music. I don’t like this. It’s not because I don’t like music (this is questionable somedays) but because I don’t think one’s financial institution should be so casual that someone could start up a spontaneous conga line while in the midst of making out a bank draft or calculating interest owing on a mortgage (to be fair, I don’t like run-on sentences, either, but that seemed not to stop me).

Then I’ll walk down the street to the drugstore, and I’ll pass a restaurant that has a little speaker above the door emitting Sade, Norah Jones, or a Tex-Mex band that was popular a decade ago but whose name I’ve forgotten. I never hear Dave Brubeck or Johnny Cash. To the dry cleaners: the rattle of the automated racks and the blare of music playing in the background. Home again: car radios booming as the kids from the school fire up to go home – not without socializing. Voices raised to be heard above the car radios and screaming laughter from teenaged girls as teenaged boys toss around the keys to the girls’ expensive cars. Right now, I hear a car idling. This really chafes.

At country markets, small stages are erected for live music to be played, and the fuzzy hum of bad sound systems distorts it. It’s only when the musicians take a break that you can hear the sounds of the market – conversations, kids, an occasional dog bark. Restaurants, shops, hairdressers – dens of abuse.

It’s a blight, this noise. It interferes with sound.

Now, I’m left to mourn a graveyard of obsolete digital technology. First, a machine – about the size of the pillow on which I sleep – with lots of knobs and sliders (not the local bar variety) that I never quite mastered, never quite understood. I used it, but only utilized a fraction of its potential. Looked fantastic, though – slick and modern.

Then followed the mini-disc recorders that used…well….mini-discs. They came in beautiful translucent colours. I used it, but the little buttons are so small that its compact nature was lost on me. I now use the mini-discs as shims to hold cupboard doors shut and to level light objects that seem, to my eye, to be tilting.

Another beautiful porta-studio joined the group. Necessary, of course, because it had MIDI capabilities. Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI allows electronic instruments communicate and synchronize with computers, thereby enabling all sorts of things that, like the aforementioned knobs and sliders (you know the kind I mean) I don’t understand. I used it, but never connected it to a computer.  Not to mention that I don’t play an electric instrument, save for an old electric piano over which I agonize to write little melodies – that is to say that I can barely play it. That didn’t stop me from buying a sound synthesizer that helped me create the sounds of waves crashing over sand dunes or tinkly wind chimes. I used it, but the sound of waves crashing over wind chimes began to irritate me. It’s sad that I ‘ll never again be able to go to the beach with a wind chime in my tote.

A Micro Track hand held recorder move in to replace the porta-studio. This was meant to be it. Loved it for about three weeks. Realized that the lack of a speaker made it useless for easy playback. The cute little LED screen was not backlit, therefore impossible in dimly lit rooms.

Interwoven with this assortment were several dicta-phones, the kind that slips in a jacket pocket. For rehearsal purposes, I loaned my favourite to an erstwhile – very erstwhile – colleague.  She took it reluctantly, swearing her steel trap memory rendered it useless to her. She forgot to return it to me.

I like doing things by hand – pastry-making, sock-darning, cat-patting, but I’m a pushover for shiny objects that seem to promise a new and better way of recording. Or taking pictures. Or watching movies. Or making expresso.

The beauty of these objects, I regret to say, is often polished chrome and/or fiberglass deep, and I am often too shallow to get beyond the attractive housings. Oh, I do use them – like a magpie does a dime.

Thanks for tuning in.

On things lost and returned I can spend hours of thought. There’s one great loss to which I return more than what is practical. That is the loss of my first musical instrument, a little Hohner harmonica – a Christmas gift when I was eight.

My brother describes his disbelief and subsequent delight at finding, when he was 12, a .22 calibre rifle under this Christmas tree.  My delight was as great. I remember longing for and anticipating a saxophone. Why a saxophone – I can’t say. Perhaps the Simpson’s catalogue featured one in its slim two-page music section, and I, with my early and enduring fascination with beautiful machinery, was smitten by the curves and valves. Maybe the magpie in me was mesmerized by the shine. Maybe I just knew, instinctively, that with it would eventually come a porkpie hat, and what eight-year-old girl did not dream of that?

What came was not the saxophone, but a small rectangular box that held a polished chrome Marine Band harmonica. My love was instant. I developed an immediate tunnel vision. All that surrounded me disappeared, all fell silent.  I saw only the little mouth organ. There was nothing in the world so complete, so lustrous, so right. And just like no one else got to play with my brother’s .22,  no one got to play with my harmonica. Both are dangerous in the wrong hands.

My brother took the bus to school, but I fell into an age group that required me to go to one room school, not served by a school bus, about a mile from home. Winter in rural Nova Scotia blew dress codes to threads – I wore snowsuits, sometimes over my flannel pajama bottoms, or leotards (tights, really, but we called them leotards). Sometimes flannel-lined jeans for which I still hold a dreamy fondness. If, for some reason, I was required to wear a skirt, the snow pants remained underneath the skirt all day. I, and all the girls, looked like hippos in a plaid, reversible tutus, snow boots for toe shoes. A snowsuit ensured a pocket in which I could tuck the harmonica.

On the way to and from school, I lagged behind other kids, gave them a long lead time before I headed out. I walked to school playing my harmonica. Played it, tucked it in my pocket to dance a little, play, dance, play, dance….I did this throughout the winter and spring.  It was pure and elevating joy. My teacher once waited with me so that she could walk with me as far as her house. She asked if she could try my harmonica. She put it to her lips and played a tender – soulful almost – rendition of “Little Brown Jug”. I was stunned by her sudden transformation into a deity.

One spring day, after a short spell of dancing myself home, I reached into my pocket for the harmonica to discover it wasn’t there. I retraced my steps. Many, many times on many different days. Never found it. Foolishly, I believe it’s intact in some preserving pocket of time, and that it shines still, waiting for a magpie’s eye.

The hope of owning that book is lost to me now – I forget the title, the writer and have no guess as to how to search for it, even in this age of the search engine.  I remember its charm and whimsey, the delicate nature of the records, the tiny observations that verged on precious, but I can’t find it.

I have my own lists now – not obsessive, not orderly, but I have them.

On-paper, I refer to these: to-do; grocery; travel; wine; birthday cards. Off-paper, there are: likes; dislikes; fears; loves; hates; grudges; things I should have said; things I should not have said; things I should have taken back after I said them (impossible); bad shows; good shows; no-shows; performance invitations I declined that I should have accepted and vice versa; secret material wishes; things I would change physically – character flaws, too; huge gaffes both professional and personal; long harboured bad deed guilts; lies I wish I hadn’t told; truths I wish I hadn’t told; animal names for when I again have a dog; letters I didn’t answer; favourite chip flavours in descending order; regrets.

These come off the top of my head at the moment, of course – there are many other lists I have missed. Of the above, however, regret stands out. It’s the one I least regret.

I could list many bad decisions, but given the richness of my life right now, I feel that I’ve made only a few mistakes. Others might disagree. If necessary, they could make a list of the dozens of stumbles and almost purposeful missteps that turned me away from opportunity, took me down the path of stupid.

For now, I’m sticking to my own list of lists. A fellow songwriter once wrote “my face is a map of my time here”.  My face is not so poetic. My lists are a map of my life. So far.

Here’s a tune. Hope you like it.

06 Boy on a Bicycle

Hoping to post a player on the website so that I can add a tune from time to time. Oh, and Greytown will be available on iTunes shortly for you who like to download single cuts.

Funny, that single cut stuff. It occurs to me that it’s akin to taking the butter but not the beans. Sometimes, though, all you want is the butter.

I’m backed up a little in answering emails, but I’ll probably be able to catch up on that this week. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for tuning in.

Off I go…blogging from beautiful Pictou, Nova Scotia for the next few days.