Fortunately, we have a fence

From the Red Deer Advocate: "The City of Red Deer is warning residents to use caution around wildlife after several recent moose sightings. People should be especially wary of wildlife since it’s spring, when animals may be protecting their young. Some animals, including moose, might act aggressively if they’re harassed."

Actually, this  is a Calgary moose. Red Deer moose are far less scruffy.

It's hard to explain this to people who live just about anyplace else. It's a spring-thing. Sorta kinda like the ice cream truck or the current weather report:  "Snow. Partly Cloudy. High: 5° C."

Note the fence.  Note the lilac bushes. May 29, sheesh.

News flash: the ice cream truck is back, but still, no pretzels in Red Deer

Winter must be over. The ice cream truck made its rounds today on our block for the first time this year. I'm hoping it is a signal to RW that it is safe to take the snow tires off the car. And the fence is mostly done, or so I've been told.  These man things are hard to figure out with my small woman brain. They are doing something tonight that involves beer and concrete. When they are finished, I may be told the results. Or not.

In the meantime, I have been missing good soft pretzels, a desire fueled by a New York Times article on the finer points of pretzel making and availability in New York City, where, apparently there is a rebirth of pretzel-love.

When I lived in St. Louis, pretzels were an important part of city life. There it was somewhat of a tradition that retired old men who were looking for a reason to get out of the house, and wanted to do something other than sit with other old men in Jack in the Box drinking endless cups of coffee, sold soft pretzels at various locations throughout the city. They made there way to the pretzel bakeries before sparrow fart and then took up their posts selling the pretzels to those of us who were headed off to work without breakfast.

Apparently, the tradition continues. A decade ago, the pretzel vendor locations were fixed by municipal ordinance and municipal ordinances were more-or-less respected. This is no longer true. The Revolt of the Octogenarians has come to St. Louis.

From St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay's blog:

City inspectors generally have more urgent things to do than chase after octogenarian pretzel salesmen. If no one is hurting anyone, we generally don't enforce minor ordinance violations. For instance, some kids set up a skateboard park underneath a road overpass. Because they were not hurting anyone, we allowed them to stay there. We even installed trash cans for the kids to keep the place clean.

However, City departments do have an obligation to respond to residents’ complaints and to treat all businesses fairly. For whatever reason, the pretzel vendors were getting more and more aggressive. We got complaints from residents that the City was not enforcing the law.

The City is in the middle. If you complain about things like this, we will enforce the ordinances as the Board of Aldermen writes them. If you don’t, we probably will not.

So, if there are any old pretzel guys reading this, you should really consider talking one of those pretzel bakeries to close up shop in St. Louis and move to Red Deer, Alberta. If you set up your cart on Ross Street, you'll have plenty of business. We have bylaws here, but it will probably be at least a decade before pretzel vending is brought to the attention of the City Council, and by then I won't be driving to work without breakfast, and you will either be beyond caring or happy to drink endless cups of coffee at Tim Hortons in the morning.

Good fences make good neighbours

The fellas tore down one of the side yard fences, which revealed our neighbour's backyard. As I am 4'11" and the new fence is 6' tall, I will only have this amazing view for the next few days.

 

They did get a start on the fence itself. The first fence post took 110 pounds of concrete, a six pack+, and about three hours.  I am told the process will be faster now that they have learned the tricks. As there are about 30 posts, this would be a very good thing.

 

Eliot, you got it wrong, let me show you May

T.S. Eliot The Waste Land.  1922.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding   

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing   

Memory and desire, stirring   

Dull roots with spring rain.   

Winter kept us warm, covering           

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding   

A little life with dried tubers.

This is the backyard at The House of Noodles. It illustrates the effect of one too many winters in Central Alberta.

Now, for some reason, I see spending several thousand dollars on a new fence for our property as something of a tragedy. This is not how it appears to the man I live with. Nor, apparently, is it how it seems to the men who live in the homes on either side of us.

To them it is a project. It is an exercise in (late) middle aged male bonding. It is an adventure. It is a very good reason to drink beer.

It seems that all three of us need new fences this year. And as we share the fences with each other, the decision as to which fence we will buy, how it will be installed, and where we will purchase it calls for several evenings spent drinking beer, several trips to various fencing emporia (prior to the beer drinking, of course), and wild speculation or serious conversation (depending on one's point of view and the amount of beer imbibed ) regarding things like the number of sacks of concrete needed for the posts, the size auger one must rent for the job, and countless other very, very important things.

The people on either side of us have dogs to consider in all of this. The men appeared to have forgotten this as they stood by the fence, beer in hand, and contemplated just "knocking the damn thing down." Although, I had no particular reason to get involved in this part of the discussion, as we have cats, rather than dogs that might go a wandering, I did.

In any case, the fencing will be purchased tomorrow and the fun will begin on the weekend. I'm thinking of going to a hotel. I may take the cats, just in case the beer and the dogs and the (late) middle aged bonding becomes too much for delicate souls.

I'm cheap, therefore I Kobo

I took the plunge and bought an eBook reader last week. I've been watching the technology (and the price) since pre-Kindle days, but didn't take the plunge until the Kobo reader was released in Canada last weekend. At $149 CAD it was definitely the right price and e-ink with ePub and PDF formats was the right technology.

Unless you count the "easter egg" that lets you play video poker on it, the Kobo doesn't do anything other than let you read books. It has no wifi, no touchscreen, and no ability to annotate, underline, or surf the web. You can't get a book from out of the ether onto the reader without plugging into a computer.

I bought this particular reader for several different reasons. It is lightweight (222 grams) which makes holding it for long periods of time a non-issue. The scalable fonts are good for my old(er) eyes. I realized that I didn't need something that could also surf the Internet. We have five computers at our house. I have a smartphone for those times when I am away from a computer  and find myself either bored and or wanting to casually browse the net or read my email.  It also came preloaded with 100 copyright free books, good classics all.

Paired with Calibre, a donation supported piece of software that converts file types and does oh so much more, library management is a breeze. If I want to take a walk on the wild side, I could (theoretically, of course) use a small python script to convert Kindle's locked down DRM laden books into nekkid ePub files and read them on my Kobo.

It's not perfect, of course. No 1.0 device ever is, but it does the trick. I have learned the ins and outs of converting file formats, found great sources of free (and legal) books, and successfully retrained myself so that I slow down to the rate at which I read analog books, rather than the rapid scanning that I generally do when reading on-line.

In any case, I have had my Kobo since Tuesday morning. It made a big enough hit at The House of Noodles, that RW bought one, too.  He bought the black one, of course. After all, he is a manly man.

I'm standing in the washroom, and I don't need to pee

I was half way out the door this morning when I realized I had no money. I walked the 15 meters to my bedroom (where the money can be found on top of RW's dresser), but ended up turning left instead of right and found myself in the washroom.

I looked around. I was pretty sure I had taken a shower, brushed my teeth, and put on deodorant. I knew I didn't have to pee. So why was I there? Fortunately, after a few seconds of pondering, I remembered the money thing. I exited the washroom, and soon was on my  way.

I am choosing to reframe this as multi-tasking gone awry--the kind of thing that happens when a busy person with a busy mind tries to walk while thinking. I used to be able to do that, but now, not so much. It could have been worse, I suppose, I could have stood by the dresser wondering how to pee on the money clip.

Unfortunately, I have to work

When I awoke at 3:30 this morning, I immediately realized that my life is not worth living--well, not for the next three days. It's a work thing.

Life would be so much better if someone would just send me a big fat envelope stuffed with money on a regular basis. I would be grateful, very grateful. And I would use it wisely (well mostly). I would pay my mortgage, buy healthy food (well mostly), and work for world peace. I would only buy one expensive handbag a year. I would not fritter away the hours watching food porn on foodtv or decorating porn on HGTV. Well, except for mebbe Top Chef and that new Mike Holmes show.

If the first envelope of money could be delivered to my door in the next 60 minutes, I would do the whole world peace thing today. Really.