He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile!

Last lyric title of November, and I've been saving this one!  


Hasn't this been fun?  Let's do it again some time.  Maybe in March when there's nothing but mud outside and we all need a cheer up?


This is going to be one of those Brain Clearing blog posts.  Please pick one you like best and discuss.

1) I keep hearing about the suffering of the publishing business, and it scares the crap outta me. I want to write novels, if not for a living, for love, and hopefully make enough money at it that I will never have to run a cash register again.  If I was rational I'd get a "real" job, but no, I decided to chase down my two lifelong dreams: write novels and ride horses.  I'm quite thankful that horses can't be digitally downloaded, let me tell you.  I do believe I'll have students because the horse fever is powerful. In the meantime, regardless of what the pessimists are moaning about, I can only keep on writing and get my horses ready for spring.

B) Of course, for the last few weeks I haven't been doing either of those things, because I've been getting our house ready to sell.  The emotional fallout is nasty.  I knew we would not grow old in this house, but I've gotten rather attached to it. I feel like we're putting a lot of work into a house we don't intend to live in anymore. It's confusing.

#) However, I have been able to use my stunning skills in Amateur Interior Desecrating.  It's tricky, attempting to predict what Mr & Mrs Potential Next-owner will like.  I'm too weird to know what Normal people like in a house, although I've accepted that I have to quit being so stubborn about it.  Hey, know what really helps?

Admitting that I don't really give a crap what normal people like in a house.

I feel so much better now.

?)  Speaking of horse fever; I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  Those of us who are willing to work closely with a large hooved animal operating on a very strong flight instinct are a strange bunch, if I allow myself to analyze the situation.   Do I think about the possible danger?  Hell yes.  Yet I've never had a panic attack while riding.  I'll freak out in a traffic jam or grocery store line up, but if imminent doom creeps up while I'm on horseback it's just kind of the old "Aw CRAP" response.  Like, dammit, here we go again, I gotta either fix it or get the Rapid Involuntary Dismount.  I don't even get scared anymore when it happens.  I just get super irritated.

All I know is, I am gettin' back on that horse again.  And I'm going to continue cleaning up after them, brushing them, admiring them, taking pictures of them and writing about them.  I can't be kept away from those horses.

In a  lifetime of getting thrown off, falling off and getting stepped on I haven't broken a bone.

I can't decide if I'm
                              - made out of rubber
                              -absolutely frickin insane
                             -a hell of a lot tougher than I look.
                              -a hell of a lot luckier than I think.


Your turn.  Name that tune.

Now you do what they told ya

A classic song of rebellion!  Some electrifying music to play when the work ethic slows down...


Apparently, people who are looking at houses for sale have zero imagination.  They are incapable of looking at a house and picturing their crap in it instead of somebody else's crap.  They can't look at a house and see anything other than what's right in front of their eyeballs.

I have been told that I have to repaint my living/dining room/ upstairs hall/ entrance/ downstairs hall.
I have to because First Impressions Are Everything.

I don't want to.  I like the colour I chose.  It's called Stone Harbour and it's a nice warm grey with just a tiny tint of brown.  It's neutral without being beige.  I'm sure you can imagine how I feel about beige if you don't already know.

Our real estate agent, who knows a hell of a lot more about selling houses than I do, advised us to take it up a shade or two.  Not change the colour necessarily but take it lighter.

So, I'm gonna do it.

Because apparently the rest of the world can't look at a house without freaking out, clasping their hands to the faces and shrieking, "Good Heavens, the living room is... it's... IT'S SO DARK and GLOOMY."  Cuz like you know, anything darker than BEIGE is so DARK it'll SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF YOU OH NOOOOOOOOO YOU MUST NOT BUY THIS HOUSE!

See, I really love this house, but I have to sell it, so I have to do what they told me.

This is tricky, this preparing my house to be presented to the world, because I don't know what everybody else likes.  I know what I like.  I like warmth, and coziness, and bright colours contrasted against an unexpected neutral.  I like black.  I have black curtains and black tiles in the bathrooms, and the kitchen floor. I like paintings on the walls.  I like things that are old and have a sheen of wear and history.  I like softness.  I like pictures of my loved ones.  I like displays of little things that have some kind of special meaning to me, or some kind of visual interest.  I like plants and rusty horseshoes on the windowsills.  Yeah, this often translates to a style I like to call "New Millennium Packrat" and it's not for everybody.

I can't tell what everybody else likes.  I don't understand the big-box store beige carpet world some folks live in.  And they wouldn't understand me.



(Honestly, general population of the world, can we get over our fear of the non-beige???  Be brave!  And don't fear the grey!     Ha, wait 'til they work their way back to our purple bedroom!  ha, ha ha harrrr!)

Ahh ah ahhhhhhhhhhhh AHH!!!!

I swear to David St Hubbins if this house does not sell in less than two weeks for a price well above that listed after a heated fierce bidding war I will spend the rest of the winter in the corner with my knees clenched to my chest rocking back and forth begging not to pick up another paint brush and moaning pitifully that once just once in my life I'd like to come up a winner in this fricking stupid game of life as a grown up.

valhalla I am comeeeeeeeeeeeeng

Can't explain all these feelings that you're making me feel!

Are you going to miss lyric titles when November's over?

I am in love.  He's tall, broad shouldered, really good at hugging.  There are strands of silver in his long dark hair.  He's been around for so long I know him better than I know myself.  He puts up with my crazies and emotional outbursts and horse addiction; I put up with his ridiculous career and righteous rants and occasional bouts of well-earned arrogance.

You know what?  We get along really, really well.  I'd say better than most married people, from what I've seen.  Sometimes we disagree on something to do with raising the kids, but we talk it out.  We talk a lot of things out.

This year has been one of the most difficult we've had together in over 20 years.  Deciding to sell our house and move was not easily done, despite being a long term goal.  Even though we're on the same team, we've disagreed constantly, about things we theoretically agree on.  We bickered over stupid things like door hinges and painted trim.  I've felt resentful that this house is getting beautified for the benefit of somebody's wife when the New People buy the house.  He's felt resentful that he's alone while the kids and I settle in at the farm.

So we've fought more than usual.

I hate fighting.

I think it's weird that I can love somebody so much and be so frustrated by him.

Point is, I still love him.  I can feel like screaming at him but I still love him!

We have to remember that.  Staying married ain't easy.  If we don't constantly remind each other that we love each other through all this difficulty and hassle, what have we got?

It's Friday, I'm in Love!

Took me all day and night to come up with a lyric title.  Guess away!


Oh it's that wonderful time of year, when those genius people at PEOPLE mag roll out their Sexiest Man Alive issue.  And this year, they really got it right:

Really all I can say is, "DUH."  The choice, as far as I'm concerned, is a total no brainer!

Unfortunately, I had to break it to Jethro that once again they forgot to include him.  I mean, like I said they got the cover boy right this year, but they I sometimes seriously wonder what the heck they're thinking.  For example.  The first time Johnny got this title, the cover looked like this:

Honestly, PEOPLE?  Really?  It took until 2003 which is either unexplainable or baffling, and then, then, they gave 1/3 of the cover to Bachelor Boob.  Tell me, where is he now?  No don't tell me.  Have any other Sexy Men had to share a cover????

And then they go and leave out the Sexiest Recording Engineer out of it too.

But it's okay.  They've honoured Johnny again and he's now in the Two Time club with George and Brad.  Can you see them having a club meeting?  George would have to be all slicked up with his Dapper Dan Hair Pomade...

Brad would be kinda sleepy lookin' what with all a them younguns runnin' around on his place...

and Johnny would be... well, he'd be his usual perfect combination of scruffy and elegant...

Hugh Jackman apparently quipped recently that he's happy to pass along the title since he's looking forward to slacking off in the appearance maintenance.  I'm confident Johnny won't have any issues with that.  Mostly because he seems pretty happy keeping on with whatever he's been doing.

I have to include a few other faces from the mag's website feature.

Gotta love happy, healthy looking RDJ with his big brown eyes and silver whiskers.

And hey, Rpattz looks clean!  He's a strange boy.  He's absolutely lovely with those cat eyes and nice lips and handsome jaw, but he often photographs like he's just crawled hungover out of a ditch.

Mind you I can handle a pretty heavy amount of scruff and grime.  That's what soap was invented for.

I can get past it.  (Also that's a darn pretty National he's holding.)

But his fingernails are all long and nasty in that movie but I can still get past it.  Nothing a nail clipper can't fix.  Doesn't change anything. I still dig him.

I just love this guy's style.  He makes his own decisions, lives by his own standards, and manages to be a success on his own terms.  If that means accepting an award wearing a suit jacket with his plaid shirt tied around his waist, I'm cool with it.

You never know when you're going to need an extra plaid shirt.  So few people in the world realize that.


So, what makes a man sexy?

Honesty?

Humour?

Confidence?

All that and more?  Something indefinable?   What do you dudes think makes you awesome?

Heck with my commentary.  Have some pictures.  We all know why you're here today.

He's got walrus gumboots!

So tomorrow I'm throwing a little Sexiest Man Alive party.  I'll be expected all my male readers to show up and be appreciated for the wonders you are.  Aw c'mon don't be shy, you know you're wonderful.
Warning: you will likely be infected by the Johnnydeppitis tomorrow.  It's powerful.  Makes the Hini look like a gentle sneeze, but it's so much more enjoyable.  Trust me.


Wanna know how lucky I am?

Other than the lifelong debt, which I don't love, our recording studio gives us regular bursts of pure joy.

Today I'm hanging in the control room, waiting for the laundry machines upstairs to finish what the ones at home can't do.  If I had to hang at the studio and do laundry on any day ever, this is the day.  Three awesome guys are on the floor and in the iso booths, recording something... something... indescribable and cool.  Sadly, the world in general hasn't heard of these guys.  Other musicians know them.  They are heroes in this tiny little music community.  They have devoted fans and they make a living at this; they're pretty happy.  And they are three of the nicest, most artistic, amazing people I've met.  They are not a bunch of greasy teenager pop star pin ups.  They're so real.

Kevin has this awesome old dobro from the 30s. He's also pulling out a mandola and a mandocello. Gary has a giant kick drum and a loonie taped to the sole of his shoe, which makes a nice tap on the sheet of plywood on the floor.  Russell was playing a big gorgeous upright bass.  Before they started to record, they listened to a mind blowing Youtube video where two men with British accents discuss the studio eight tracks of "Come Together" and solo the tracks.  Imagine hearing each track alone.  I am so lucky.

I don't know what to call this song.  Jazz-country-bluegrass-creepfunk?

I'm just sitting here on the big couch at the back of the room, cross legged, Macbook balanced between my knees, one foot tapping, head bobbing, goosebumps rising and falling, hair on the back of my neck quite actively moving.  I love it.  Some days of studio hang are tedious.  Just dead boring.  There's Jethro at the console, hitting playback and tweaking one note over and over before moving on to the next.  Two words at a time on the vocal, sometimes two syllables at a time.  Plus the building's in a nasty ugly industrial area and you know me, I crave scenery.  There ain't scenery here unless you consider wrecked cars and transmission shops and "relaxation spas" to be picturesque.  I do not.

Today we've got musicians who know what the heck they want and how to do it.  These guys are so good even their mistakes sound awesome.

All I have to do is tiptoe up the steps and check my laundry.

The guys were in the control room here listening to a pass and each of them swayed to the music.  They were singing and humming harmonies, working out the vocal as they listened.  I'm in heaven here.  Surreal lyrics in the chorus and all these freaky harmonies and chords changing from minor to major and people, I don't even know much about music.  I'm not a musician.  I can't read notes and my naturally freakily talented daughter keeps begging me not to sing.  But I know I dig this.

Bubba's laughing at me cuz I'm so excited to be here today.

Just so lucky.

I was really irritated at the washing machine for conking out now, when we're trying to get this house all fixed up and clean and I'm not even there all the time.  Maybe my timing's not so bad after all.

Sometimes I'm just so lucky.


It's been a tough year folks, and I've been so tempted so often to beg Jethro to quit this unforgiving business, just screw the awards and walk away from the money sucking studio, just cut the losses and walk away.  Leave it before it ruins his body and turns him into a set of ears and buggy eyes with ProTools maps burned onto the surface, a big right thumb from clicking the mouse of errant notes, a weight problem from years of bad eating and a rolling chair shaped butt.  Twenty years of not enough sleep and too many hours in a room with no windows.  Too many hours and never, never enough pay to get anywhere but spinning the wheels.  Just get the hell out.

This, people, THIS is why I can't do that.

Because sometimes we're so darn lucky.

This indecision's bugging me.

Alright, which one of you knows what song this title's from?  I'm wondering if Mr F Dinners knows... Not that it matters because he's already a winner, far as I'm concerned!


Some of you might be aware of the weirdness that is my life these days.  I'm in my own house today, but it looks less like my house every time I'm here, as it empties of the objects that make it home.  Meanwhile my parental homestead gets to be more like home, as the kids and I settle into it.  My husband is sort of living a whole other life while we are out in the country.  This is all part of a very strange transitional time in our lives.  There are so many positive reasons for this move, no matter how much it often hurts to do it.

The impact of the transition is really hitting me.

I am ready willing and able to teach riding lessons, but apparently, people aren't looking out the windows at naked trees and morning frost and thinking, "Hey, I wanna learn to ride a horse!"  They're thinking, "Hey, I should see if that snowblower still runs."  I think this is a perfect time of year to ride. It's not freezing, and there are no bugs.  I think most people though, associate riding lessons with summer.  So even though I put up flyers with the phone number, I got no calls, I got no students.

Maybe it's better that way... I really want to get a truckload of sand into the corral first to improve the footing, but can't afford it yet.

However.

It doesn't cost me anything to write.

And I have been writing.

Slowly.  It's very disjointed and choppy but that's okay.

The book I wrote years ago and have been improving ever since is still on my mind.

I think I know what to do with it.  I have narrowed down the next place to send it.  I want to give it one more intense read, just to catch any lingering mistakes, and then I will be ready again.

Hold my breath, close my eyes and give it a shove.

Or not.

Yes, I will.

Or maybe I'll keep working on the new project and send it around to agents.

NO, no I'll send my previous book.

Yeah that's what I'll do.

Unless I get distracted by something shiny first.

Blame it on my roots. I showed up in boots.

alright, which one of you knows what song this one is???


Ah boots.  My life would be totally different and quite difficult without boots.

Talk amongst yourselves now!

In some respects, I suspect you've got a respectable side.

Yep, it's still guess the lyric.  Now let's talk...

Who do you respect, and what does it take to earn your respect?

Me, I respect people who say what they mean.  I don't like hearing words come out that don't match the body language.  That stuff weirds me out.  I confuse easily.

I respect people who know what the hell they're talking about.

I respect people who walk the walk.

I respect people who are artists, of any kind.  Writers, poets, painters, actors, musicians.  Craftsmen.  Photographers.  Bakers.  Dancers.  Auto body technicians.  Farmers.  Songwriters.

Some on that list don't get respect.  I think that's a darn shame.

Yo tellin me things but I gotta make clear - can't say, baby, where I'll be in a year!

Most likely not stage diving, although you never know...

It's a little unnerving, this temporary living arrangement.  However, I'm getting spoiled rotten.  My mom's a good cook.  And it's nice having fields to look at, and dirt lanes for the boy to practice driving skills (I hear chicks really dig that stuff) and it's nice having two handsome barn cats for Lucy to pretend to hate.  It's awesome having more grandparent time for my kids.  It's perfect, having my horses right outside the door. 

Not so perfect having the husband's career an hour down the highway. 

So we drive down the road pointing at farms with For Sale signs that we darn well know we can't afford right now, and Tribble and I plan the flower gardens of the future.  

What was I talking about again?

Oh yeah.  Stand in the corner justa shakin yo azz...

How can I explain? You would not understand. This is not how I am.

Just to make it more difficult (because I think this one's too easy) I want the band, song title, AND name of the album.

(I shouldn't do this... hint: think of a significant event in Europe twenty years ago.)

I'm just see-through faded, super jaded, and out of my mind.

You know what to do.  


And I'll be making this harder y'know.  


Post stays up til we have a winner!

Lookin' for a place to happen, makin' stops along the way...

okay, now which one of you genius readers can guess that lyric???  Prize is the same - my pure admiration - cuz that's all I got to give!  I've just decided this is going to be a November thing.  Stay tuned...


Walking the dog has become a whole new adventure. It used to mean harnessing him up and going for a nice mannerly walk around the block, or various combinations of loopy subdivision blocks, on the sidewalk.  I always had a bag in my pocket to carry the poop home in, because that's how you do it.

Now, going for a walk means running in circles, sniffing, barking, running, crapping in the long grass, and more sniffing.

I wonder if he misses finding all those messages from other dogs in the neighbourhood.  I imagined him sniffing and his little puggy brain going, "That's Rocky.  Before that Monty was here."

What does he smell now?  Does he detect Moe the barn cat on his most recent hunting trip?  Does he find all those sneaky nocturnal critters we never see?

I've been keeping busy lately getting the old scrapyard cleaned up before winter.  When I was a kid, and my Dad supplemented the farm income by painting cars, we had quite a few parts cars and wreckers in the bottom of the yard.  Now I go for dog walks and come back with handfuls of radio knobs, hoses, door handles.  I got the eagle eye for this stuff; I can spot weatherstripping hiding in the short grass from several feet away.  I used to want to be an archaeologist.  I imagined myself digging treasures out of the Egyptian sand.  Now I dig junk out of the Ontario clay.  It's still fun.

Everything is interesting to this dog of mine.  Everything.  I don't know what he sees or smells, but he sure gets excited about those treks around the yard.  It's like a two acre dog playground.

The yard looks better every day, the dog is slim and trim, and winter's coming.  In his first three years, winter at the farm has meant leashed walks around the lane way and quick dashes to the lilac bush for nature calls.  This year will be different.  The little house dog has figured out where the property line is, where his territory ends, and what happens if he steps over the line.

I worried how the town dog would transition to becoming a farm dog, but I'm not worried anymore.  I mean, I still have to keep an eye on him.  There's a lot of traffic around here and he's small.  I don't want him to get hit.  Plus, just because he knows he's not allowed in the horse pasture doesn't mean he'll never sneak in there.  Those smells are just so tempting.  But he's doing great.  I'm expecting this winter that we'll pack down a few trails through the huge snowdrifts and possibly have a little bit of fun with it.

Of course, there's always the possibility of finding messages from sneaky critters who don't want to be seen... I'm sure the little dog'll find things to take care of.