An actor, a director, and an imaginary friend.

The publicity machine for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland is getting into high gear in preparation for the movie's release.  I personally am very excited about this.  Even if it wasn't involving Burton and Depp I'd still want to see it.  

These guys are so cool.  They seem to bring out the creativity in each other.  When they do interviews together they totally crack me up.  What a great team.

  

And this guy... how does he do this?  How can anybody be this good looking?  And, how can he look this good in such strange/ excellent combinations of clothing?  Everything he wears looks old, lived in, and really comfy.  I wonder if he and Brad shop at the same thrift store, and if so, can it be the one I buy my clothes at?  I think that would be right on.

If I remember correctly, I used to wear a plaid blazer like that in high school.  He looks dashing and different and casually comfortable.  I looked like a little kid wearing somebody else's coat.  

Yep, giving the big "Screw You" to the unspoken laws of formal wear.  That's our Johnny.

I have an new character in my head.  He's the hero, in his own messed up anti-hero way, of my new book.  

I don't often start a new story with anybody real taking on any of the character's roles. My imagination can invent entirely new people, so why picture an actor or relative or friend?  This time, my new imaginary friend has a few similarities with Favourite Actor here.  He's not a big tall guy, he's brown eyed and square jawed, and feels normal when wearing plaid.  His hair is usually messed up and some days he can't be bothered to shave.  

His name is Dale.  He drinks too much.  He's got a new job: help his elderly auntie clean up her crumbling old house.  Forty years worth of everything she's ever possessed... all there for him to get through.

He's quite perplexed about the whole thing.  This is what his life has come to: wading through piles of newspapers and old clothes.  Oh, and supposedly not getting drunk.  How did it go this way?

Poor guy.  He'll be busy for a looong time.

(Might make a good movie... I can dream...)

Happy weekend, folks.  

When I'm there, I feel like I should be here. When I'm here, I feel like I should be there.

This week, I'm in a house that doesn't feel like it's mine anymore.  Very soon, it will not be mine.  I'm emotionally withdrawing from it, but I never said it would be easy. It's not.  Getting it all prettied up makes it even harder... it never looked this good when we lived in it!

Oh, that gorgeous oak floor.  I have been sweeping, sucking up, and mopping sawdust for three days.  Getting a floor that beautiful is hell.  That's why we didn't do it when we still all lived here.

I know back at the farm things are okay without me.  They were before I moved back, so why wouldn't they be now?  But I feel like I need to get back to work.

Of course, one of the reasons the house has taken so long to get ready is because I've been at the farm.  And Jethro's been at work.  Neither of us can be in two places at once.  

Well, this difficult stage of our lives will shift again and we'll be on to a new different kind of difficult stage.  Aren't they all?  

In a short time, I'll officially no longer be the farm kid living in the subdivision.  I won't be the co-owner of the cute little 50's bungalow in town.  I will leave behind this little patch of land that had our names on it.  

But, I get to keep the friends I made!!

I keep thinking about how many things in my life are so terribly wrong, and yet in so many ways my life is so very right.  

A non-skating poor excuse for a Canadian is still pretty amped about this gold medal!

It's true: I don't skate.  I gave my used hockey skates away a couple years ago, after I decided that if I'm going to be outside freezing, it'll have something to do with horses, NOT a frozen hard surface and really uncomfortable footwear.  But I do get it.  It's fun when it all goes smoothly.  I'm just not your typical hockey-freak Canuck.  And I sure as heck don't understand figure skating.  I have a hard enough time going in a straight line with two metal blades attached to my feet -- spinning and jumping????

My mom and my sister Sweetie... they loooooove figure skating.  They buy tickets to competitions and everything.  Give Sweetie a year and she'll tell you who the world champions were.  She can name off all the medal winners from Olympic years back to 1988.  That was a big year.  The Olympics were in Calgary Alberta, and for the first time ever a Canadian team of ice dancers won a medal.  It was bronze.

Well... in many ways, it's been a good year to be Canadian.

Those are a couple of huge gold medals hanging off of a team of ice dancers from right here in Ontario.  Virtue and Moir are the first Canadians to win gold in ice dancing and are also the first North Americans of any kind to get this medal.

Dudes.  I don't really get ice dancing at all but I sure do like to watch it.  Pairs skating, with all those death defying throws, make me cringe.  It's great when it works, but yeesh, not when it doesn't.  Ice dancing is sometimes embarrassing too, with overdone theatrics and ridiculous costumes.  However, when it's beautiful, it's darn near transcendent.

Not that I saw it.  No TV in the house these days; besides, I went to hang with my big ol' writers group last night.

Instead I looked up some still shots. This is always good for entertainment...

Like, um... where's his other hand???  Careful there, bud.  Don't distract her...

When you think it through, considering these guys have to put their hands all over pretty and fit young women, you'd think teenage boys would be lining up to do figure skating.  I mean, duh.

And how can she be looking down at that potentially skull-cracking ice like that and look so peacefully happy?  How is this possible??

On the other hand, he looks quite strong, and since she's clearly not worried about getting dropped, well then...

WHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

I get the thrill seeking mentality.  I just can't imagine it combined with wearing tons of make up and hair pins and like, tights and tiny floaty skirts.  I'm thinking these young ladies look like angel fairies but are superhumanly tough, holy smokes.  

I know from the few small horse shows I've competed in that most of the difficulty is mental toughness.  Your head can mess you up big time when it counts most.  Considering a shocking tragedy earlier this week (our figure skating champ's mother collapsed and died of a heart attack after arriving in Vancouver) I can't imagine how hard it would be to stay in the moment and keep showing.  Add the pressure to win in the home country.  Add the first tragedy on opening day, when a young luger was killed.  I guess that's what years of training will do  -- give an athlete (or rider, or actor, musician, whatever) the ability to empty the mind of everything else except for RIGHT NOW, the moment.  

Then, hopefully, the reward could be a moment like this.

I'm not really into sports.  Like I said, I don't skate.  But I like a good drama.  And what the heck, I will just up and say it.

I think we have a really pretty flag.

(Next up: Did you catch the guy's speed skating Whole Lotta Handsome race on the weekend? No?  Well I did!)

Couldn't I just pull my fingernails out instead?

I'm at my house/ the house we're going to sell/ my former home/ place where my wonderful neighbours still live.  I'm here because I have to clean/ vacuum/ scrub/ cry/ put things in garbage bags/ complain/ cry/ touch up/ repaint and generally pretty up the place.

Honestly, except for the chance to catch up with neighbours and go to my writers group, I'd rather be flinging horse manure.  Haven't I done enough here?  I have painted EVERY WALL IN THIS HOUSE.  It took 12 1/2 years, and most of it's been done in the last 6 months, but seriously, haven't I done enough primping and fixing in this house?

Isn't it perfect enough already????

waaaaa.

Anyways.  Catch watch the Limpics because the TV got moved to the farm.  I do have Mac White, so I can look up big Olympic news.

I have The PUG to keep my company.  He keeps spinning out on the beautiful freshly sanded and varnished hardwood floors, which convinces me all over again that he is valuable for comic relief.

And speaking of which...

That's my son Bucky the Nerd, last weekend, flailing around like a slippery Pug.  He was blinded by the brightness of that amazingly shiny floor.  You know, it kind of makes me feel like after all this work we should just jack up this house, load it on a truck and ship it out to the sticks... but not.

Because that just sounds like too much damn work.

Well, I have procrastinated enough and must continue putting sawdust into bags.  I'M NOT BITTER ABOUT THIS.

Okay maybe I am just a little.

But I'll get over it.

I promise.

I will just sigh heavily and accept the fact that living in a house means fixing a house, and that someday I'll have a house to call my own again.  And I'm sure it'll be a slightly rundown little old farmhouse that I will love, and I will never be wealthy enough to make it look this perfect.  All I can hope for is that selling this house will soon get us into one with some land attached.

Also I have learned an important lesson.

DO NOT SAND A FLOOR UNLESS THE HOUSE IS EMPTY.

And always have extra vacuum cleaner bags handy.

Later, folks.

$#%$ Internet!

It gets sketchy out here in the country.  We've got the iGadget rigged to the Mac White but it pooped out all day, which is why you didn't get a magnificent blog post today.  Tell you what: I'll work on a big patriotic thing full of big red maple leaves and medals and total rock star athletes- lots of 'em, not just the Canucky ones - and in the meantime here's a dose of Depp for you.

Here have another.

I'm feeling generous now that I have internet again.

I've been watching more TV than usual lately.

I've been watching crazy people throw themselves through the air and landing in the snow.

Have a good weekend, go play in the snow, don't try the stuff you see on TV and I'll seeya.

It's awards show season and I cannot discuss scrap metal right now, ok?

You know that deal we have with awards shows?

I watch them, and then I post pictures with colour commentary, then you read it so you don't have to watch it yourself, right?  

I need to ask your opinion on something here.  I'm way behind.  I haven't even finished my Golden Globes commentary yet, I've totally missed the Grammys, and we're coming up on the Oscars.  I was really digging that Globes post, but it's really getting old.

DO YOU STILL WANT TO READ IT???

I'm not allowed to write about the price of scrap metal, just in case my readership reacts and causes a huge shift in the price of scrap metal.  Imagine if all the hicks and rednecks and hoarders read my blog and all rushed out to cart that old rusting wreck behind the shed off to the scrapyard.  It would be huge.

So instead, I'm asking you if you'd still like to read about all my incredibly immature "golden globes" jokes.

Because I wouldn't write about the price of scrap metal when it could cause cataclysmic change.

Help me out here, folks, could ya?


Hey, thanks for the help here-- the Golden Globes post is up and ready!  

It's official. I'M CHANGING MY DAUGHTER'S NAME.

Not the name I gave her when she was born - that one's a keeper.  I mean her blog name.  She's been known as Tribble here for awhile, which suited her fine, especially because she was in a bit of a Star Trek phase.  She still regards William Shatner as the King Of Awesome, and squeals with delight every time she catches a glimpse of Leonard Nimoy (in any stage of his known existence), but a new name has attached itself to her.

And that name is....

ANNYONG!

Yeah, it's Korean for Hello.

Let me explain.  (Get comfy.)

Some of you might be aware of a little show called Arrested Development.    I wasn't aware of it until last year and now it's one of my favourites EVER because it's just super funny and completely wack.  

The matriarch of the family possibly accidentally adopts this little Korean boy... and she doesn't speak Korean, so she thinks his name is Annyong.  Every time she introduces him, he replies by repeating "Annyong."  This creates a loop of Annyongs.  This is Annyong.  Annyong.  Over and over.  And of course the little dude has the cutest little face and the bowl cut and acts like he doesn't have a clue what's going on, although he might actually have more than a clue, probably knows more than the rest of the family, and may or may not be really eleven years old.  But it's hard to tell.  Annyong?  Annyong. 

Anyways.

Annyong.  Hello.

Clue, or not a clue?

So hard to tell!!!!

It perfectly suits our dreamy, spazzy, cute, incredibly smart but not always totally tuned into the rest of the world girl.  Or is she...?????

I knew I had to change her name one morning when Bucky and I were sitting in the car, waiting for her to come out of the house so I could drive them over to the bus stop.  Bucky is more with-it than anybody else I know.  It's both endearing and frustrating.  He gave a gasp of annoyance, slumped back in the seat, and, "What is Annyong doing?"  

Soon she'd catch herself at a moment of un-clued-ness, giggle, and sing out, "Annyong!"

Then we all started calling out Annyong after one of her "Wait - what?" moments.  And we'd all laugh.

I mean, she's so good natured about it, like when she saw the sign outside the motel in town and didn't get the joke.  You know those signs with the black letters than have to have a cover screwed down so the kids don't rearrange all the letters to say something dirty, right?  This sign said, "HE WHO LAUGHS LAST THINKS SLOWEST."  Everybody in the car laughed.  Everybody.  Then the Girl said, "I don't get it."

Then everybody laughed harder.

Then before it could be explained, she made the following progression of understanding:

Oh!  (ding ding ding!  I get it!)

Hahaha! (it's funny!)

Awww....  (dejected sound upon the realization that she is, in fact, laughing last and therefore thinking slowest!)

Then she laughed like a sparkling rainbow of happiness!

Honestly, the kid's a pure delight and if she ever takes longer to get a joke, it's not from lack of smarts, it's because all that unicorn dust in her brain takes a bit of pushing to get through, and wouldn't it be a great world if we all breathed unicorn dust?  Man, we would be a much happier and peaceful bunch.  

My mom came home from gallbladder surgery a few weeks ago, and I wasn't even going to mention it on the blog, what with the folks being the shy, publicity shunning kind (did I mention we're Mennonite? Yeah I don't know what went wrong with me.)  I have to mention it though, because our little Annyong came up with a gem that evening.

Y'see, it ended up being more than just gallbladder surgery.  Dad and the kids met us in the kitchen when I brought her home.

MY MOM: They went in for the gallbladder and found a hernia so they fixed that too.

ANNYONG:  What?  They found NARNIA????

Poor Grandma wasn't supposed to do so much hard laughing in her delicate state.

The kid did her "Wait - what?"  Then giggled.  

And that, folks, is how the Artist Formerly Known As Tribble became Annyong!

Why doesn't my brain work this well when I'm awake????

So I was dreaming about driving my dad's van.  I don't know why the van, because I have my truck.  It's legal to drive and everything.  I mean, it wasn't for a month because I couldn't afford to renew my plates, so I parked it, and now I think it's sounding kind of loud, and Bucky said he noticed the muffler hanging kind of low... since that truck EATS exhaust systems... mm, mufflers, yum... but I have a trip permit on it now so I can drive it for the next week or so... in real life.

But in dream world, I was in the ol' Safari Van.  It was exactly the same except it had been changed over to standard shift, and the shifter was a big long steel rod with a T handle at the end, which was up near my ear, like Rat Fink.  I had to reach way up to shift it.

So in other words, the usual.

I was pulling the stock trailer into town, to the fairgrounds, for a horse show.  I was thinking I'd just be there to help out, not compete.  Not ready to compete this year.  Again, like usual.

When I got there, I opened the trailer

and saw

nothing

because the horse trailer had no floor.

JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE!

In the dream I was thinking things like, "Heck, I really gotta put a floor in this thing," and "Did I put horses in this trailer, or did I just drag it here for practice?" and "If I put horses in this trailer, did they fall out somewhere on the highway?"

Looks like I'll have to put "buy lumber for trailer floor" on the long term project list.

Yesterday in the barn when I was sweeping and moving stuff, I whacked my head on the old grain chute.

My forehead hit right there on that sharp corner of the handle!!!!

So I did what any insane person would do: stomped around swearing and cussing and feeling slightly woozy, getting that metallic taste in the mouth, blinking away the stars, pressing my hand on the bump rising out of my hairline and making grinding noises in my throat.

And I thought, I am very much going to blog about this.  

Later I asked my ol' man if we could possibly take that old grain chute away, since it's been about 25 years since we were feeding pigs in this barn.  I showed him the bump on my forehead and everything.  He figures we can just shove it up inside the grain bin and call it a day.

Oh, also, this is the second time in less than two weeks that I've whacked my head on this thing.  If I recall correctly, the steps were over a foot or so when I was a kid.  

Smell ya later, folks.