Ten Foot Pole

Yesterday I was painting a difficult ceiling, it was above a stairway and it had a strange curve to it .
There was no way to use a ladder and I had no scaffolding, so I took out my telescoping pole and attached my roller to it. The job was going well, but when it came time to cut into the corner where the wall met the ceiling on the curve, the work began to slow down. I had to tape my brush to the pole and slowly, carefully, with great concentration, trace the contour.

Last night as I slept, I dreamt that I had come upon an installation of performance art. A woman sat in a chair behind a low barricade. Leaning against the barricade was a long bamboo pole with one end covered in a soft fabric. I picked up the pole, and with its soft end I traced along the contour of the woman's face, down her long neck to the V shaped depression where it met her upper sternum.

When I awoke my first thought was of blogging and the Internet. It occurred to me that the writing and the reading of blogs was somehow like reaching out and touching someone with a pole.

Poke, poke.

Quintana Roo

Quintana Roo is the name of a Mexican state. It is also the name given to the daughter of the American writer Joan Didion, I knew this for some reason, I had read it somewhere I think, perhaps in the lines of a book dedication. When I first heard the pronunciation of the name it was an Anglicized version, very much the way it appears.

When I went for a vacation in Cancun I notice the state name on the licence plates. I ask our driver the Mexican pronunciation, and he replied, (Keentawnaw Row) the last syllable was clipped short like it had been barked by a dog.

Anyway to the purpose of my post: I'm giving away this book, Miami By Joan Didion It's a first edition. The book was gifted to me years ago buy my brother in law Dave, maybe for Christmas I can't remember. I think that Didion is one of Dave's favourite writers. The guy is very serious about books, even the funny ones :), He has been a bookman all his life, or if you prefer the gender neutral, but less romantic term, bookseller.

I have read this book at least three times. I am rarely a person to read a work of fiction more then once.

If you wish to have your name in the jar for the chance to win this great read, all you have to do is add a comment sharing with us a person who you think has an unusual name. You don't have to be a regular reader of this blog to participate, you can be just passing through.

Lastly I should give credit to the person that I stole the idea from, Kendalee from Dance of a Painted Lady blog. I don't know how to form a hyper link, but if you give the girl a Google I'm sure that you'll find her.

Good luck all.

What's for Supper?

Curried beef Kabobs with potato. The recipe is totally off the cuff. I'm going to put them in the oven at the minimum safe temperature and let cook slowly while we go for a hike at Rattlesnake point with our pals the Reddins. When we get home we'll dig in. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Inside the Box

When trying to solve a problem, the personal development gurus will suggest that we get creative and think, “Outside the Box”.

I'm fine with this, I think it's a great idea, but the thing that they don't tell you is that you should take a peek “in” the box first, nine times out of ten thats where the answer is.

Thats where you left your keys...

Chicken Pie

I was at the supermarket yesterday with my son. His mother was pushing the cart far from us down an unknown aisle and he and I were doing what we do best, joke around. He has my sense of humour or perhaps you could say that we share a common one.

The store had advertised a sale on beef so he and I headed to meat department. We saw something that appealled to our chuckle headed nature. Around the beef display area there was a crowd of shoppers all digging through the cello wrapped meat, searching for the best looking chunk to take home. I grabbed my son by the arm and told him that they look just like lions on the African plain, feeding on a fresh kill and he and I were just a couple of hyenas too timid to take a bite.

We bypassed the hungry pride and found a nice small chicken, it wasn't on sale but it looked good and our family can get three meals out of a small chicken.
Bird in hand my son and I went off to find his mother and the cart. We were laughing, laughing like hyenas.

The Grand River

The Grand River of my early youth was nothing like it is now. For the greater part I would say that its health and beauty have greatly improved. There was a time when the river was a polluted vein of ugly water that ran through our town carrying sewage and agricultural runoff from lands and settlements along the way.

To eat fish from the Grand was unthinkable, there were so many phosphates in the water that huge amounts of grey brown foam would form on the surface of the churning waters below the Park Hill dam. On very windy days this awful stuff could be seen blowing around on the streets nearby.

The story of my river is to me a reminder that not all things get worse. If you care about and care for something it can be made better, decay is not always inevitable.

When I was a boy you never saw the graceful heron stalking small fish in the shallows at the rivers edge. Today their numbers high, to see them is common, though they are less rare, to see them is still a delight.

Each Brick a Prayer

When my son was very small, maybe three years old , he had a tough time falling asleep. He was afraid of ghosts and monsters and for some reason that I can not explain... hobos. I made up a story to give him comfort. I told him that in 1960, when our house was being built, the mason who laid the bricks was so much more then just a bricklayer. The man was a shaman, a priest, a holy man. I told my son that he didn't just mindlessly lay the blocks in mortar. I said that with each brick he placed he uttered a prayer, an incantation. He said, “ May no evil pass or dwell within these walls.”

This week I have been busy working on my front entrance. I ripped out the old rotting oak threshold and cast a replacement in concrete. I'm going to replace the door with a modern unit, fitted with a leaded glass window.

After I pushed and bumped the heavy, new threshold into place, I spoke the words, “ May no evil pass or dwell within these walls”.