Blogging blogging blogging

We had friends over for supper Saturday, blogging got on the subject and my friend (and reader) the divine Ms. M – who has been lurking for a while now – said something that has been trotting around in my head since then.

Basically, she was saying she would never blog because she’d feel uncomfortable about the amount of personal information being put out. For instance, she pointed out that I’m posting pictures of my house and things in it . Personal stuff, stuff that’s not politics or snarking celebrities. Like for instance, I suppose, talking about this conversation we had. Stuff about me. It would, she said, make her uncomfortable to do that.

Even though no one knows who I am – except for those I’ve met (this blog is impossible to find through my real name for instance) I still have information and stories about myself here that could, conceivably be found by total chance (i.e. for some reason someone I know is searching blogs and hits on mine and sees pictures I’ve posted and I’m busted).

Not that there’s anything I want to hide on this blog. Other than the odd comment now and again, I don’t spend my time snarking, or being nasty about people I actually know (other than the CFH once or twice). That’s why I have a journal…

Basically, she made me think (wonder) about why I do this. Beyond the basic “why do I blog” thing, it’s more of a “what exactly is the point of blogging” thing.



Why do I feel the need to talk about myself here? Obviously there is – to some extent – the “community” thing. I know between 10-20 people regularly read this, mostly other bloggers, some friends and family who lurk… But seriously, what would it change if I stopped? Not a whole helluva lot.

Are blogs a worthwhile form of expression or just the expression of a bunch of “self deluded exhibitionists”? I can understand, perhaps, a professional writer, like Ian who has said his blog is a writing exercise, it keeps him limber.

Actually, it's really simple. I love writing. I don't kid myself into believing that I'll ever write a novel or anything else that will be published. I’m not interested. Nor will I ever be a Dooce who lives off blogging. I'm just too damned lazy really. But still, I love putting words down. Playing with them, getting them to say exactly what I want even if I have to spend lots of time looking for that perfect word. And blogging allows that. A journal no one but myself will ever see just doesn't quite cut it. Besides, the journal is for whining.

I entertained a huge correspondence with friends when I was young, many many moons ago, some just a few miles away, some thousands. It wouldn't have been much more expensive to call most of them. But we wrote. Lots. I think blogging is my middle aged version of writing those letters, of chatting with someone, of putting the words down where they’ll stay, like they never will over the phone. Phones are for arranging to meet for dinner.

There is also, of course, the flattery factor. Knowing that people find me entertaining in my own right. There are people out there who don’t even know me and find me interesting enough to come back to again and again. I’ll admit it. It’s nice. Having these 20-odd strangers (who needs hundreds unless you have serious ego problems) come read what I have to say, yeah, it is nice. It’s validation of a sort.

So, do tell, what keeps you blogging, whether you’ve just started or are a long time fan? What is it that makes you keep opening Blogger and putting yourself out there for the whole world (or 20 people) to see? Use the comments, or blog about it. I’m really interested in your answers, and so, no doubt, is the Divine Ms. M…

Friday - Brain Dead Day

The Friday before a long weekend. Damn, you gotta love it... You know, I'm getting into this posting of pictures thing, it demands so much less thought on my part. And this morning? Thought is fleeting to say the least. My brain has deserted me, probably ran away in the dead of night with that damn squirrel. There will be no thought provoking posts, there will be no snark... Instead, pictures! Can't believe I've had that digital camera since October and have hardly used it until now....

So, how about a weekend at the cottage?

Saturday morning, we had to pay taxes, so while Mr. Jazz went to the town hall (below) I took a few pics of the village. It's a quiet village (some would say dead boring and they'd be right):



The church (which is sorta cute actually)



The park in front of the lake (Lac St-Joseph) I'm really happy we don't live on this lake as they're allowed to use motor boats on it. Annoying and noisy...



Main street, didn't I tell you it was b-o-r-i-n-g?



Then we went to the organic farmer's market in Val David. During the winter it's held in the school gym once a month. In summer (starting at the end of June) it's held weekly, outside. I can't wait for June...

Last Saturday's haul:



An organic free range 3kilo chicken from Diane (of Le Picardier farm) and a much smaller guinea fowl which we (um, Mr. Jazz) cooked on the BBQ Saturday night. I just realized that that was the last meat I ate last week (if you discount fish) until Wednesday evening when Mr. Jazz made a pizza with the leftover portion of guinea fowl and tons of veggies. There wasn't much left over. I seem to be eating much less meat of late...



Actually this picture looks pretty bad, but the left tart is caramel, covered by chocolate hazelnut ganache with a crunchy hazelnut caramel on top. On the right is a chocolate pear amandine. Every time we go to the market in winter I get one of those chocolate tarts and scarf it down immediately. They are pie orgasm they are.



A box of tea (green tea with bergamot, lime and orange essential oils - LOVELY) and two small jars of garlic flower pesto and a jar of some sort of herb and garlic flower paste to use as a meat rub... (Yeah, I don't think (I'll become a vegetarian just yet).



Other cool stuff - the leaves are starting, oh so slowly to come in (actually they probably pretty much in by now, it's been a week)



The hummers (the real thing) have arrived



And I brought out my old, beat up bamboo windchime (it wasn't old and beat up when I got it though)

This is my evil cat plate from JazzSis



And the frog I bought in Oz. Hmmm I'm really going to have to stain that crack that just showed up on the chest. It's nearing 100 (the chest, not the crack) and when mom passed it on to me it was painted cement grey. A complete monstrosity. One of my better refinishing projects.



Green (G-R-E-E-N!!!) stuff growing between the rocks.



And Red, doing his "I am the master of my domaine" thing. An obsession with rodents? Me? Ya think?



Have a great long weekend everyone!

What's wrong with this picture?

I'm reading a very interesting book right now, Twinkie Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger, which takes the ingredient list for Twinkies and looks at where each ingredient comes from, how it's made, etc.

The baking powder (the same one we use all the time) contains phosphorus - an ingredient which, when it comes into contact with oxygen bursts into flame... OK, well, it's not in its pure liquid form in baking powder, but still, really bizarre.

However it's this little paragraph that really caught my attention:

"Indeed, this is what innocuous, everyday baking powerder is made of, but most of this elemental phosphorus is used to make acid for Monsanto's Roundup, the most common herbicide in the world (the one that Monsanto's genetically modified corn and soybean plants resist)..."

So farmers use this herbicide and then must use Monsanto's grain (soy, corn, canola) in order to actually have a crop that can survive the weed killer. It seems Monsanto basically owns most of the grain used in the world today.

They. Own. The. SEEDS!!!

That freaks me right the fuck out.

Not only do they own the grain farmers plant but farmers cannot use saved seed for the following year because it violates Monsanto's patent. And Monsanto is taking farmers to court, sueing them millions.... Check this out and this. They're even patenting animals.

Of course I had already heard about Monsanto's way of doing business, but today it really hit home. They pretty much own our food sources now. How can this have happened?

Seriously. How?


While I was looking for an image to illustrate this post, I came across this blog Marginal Notes. (The image comes from this blog, but seems to be floating around the internet. Who knows who it belongs to.)

The god of things falling from the sky

He was sitting there minding his own business when suddenly a piece of bread hit him on the head.

“Bread?”, he wondered “What is this manna from above? Have I been wrong all these months? Was my grandfather right? Is there really a god who looks down on us with kindness and love in his heart and feeds us now and again?”

“Well,” I felt like telling him, “No, there isn’t. Mr. Jazz just threw the leftover bun onto the roof, knowing some bird or squirrel would eat it. That’s all. No use going into paroxysms of philosophical pondering. You’re just a squirrel after all; it might be somewhat taxing for you”

He (she? It?) lives in the roof of the storage shed across the alley (just under the left hand corner there). Generations have nested there. Twenty years I’ve lived here and there’s been some generation of that family sqatting there all that time. And lord knows there can be plenty fo generations of squirrels in 20 years...


And periodically a member of the family is bombarded by a crust of bread, an overripe strawberry, a yummy peach pit.

But my friend across the alley has an attitude. There he sat on the sawhorse that holds up the electrical wiring (really good workmanship there to whoever took care of that particular job - what happens when the sawhorse collapses?), nibbling on his piece of bread, when I figured, “Hey! Photo op!! Cute rodent eating bread.” (Photo op? A rodent? I am perhaps – along with Mr. Jazz – the god of squirrel manna from heaven, but I’ve also gone quite inexplicably insane it seems.)

And so it began.

He did’t think much of it at first.

Then he started to turn his head, hiding from the flash I suppose.

Annoyance began to rear its ugly head. "Damned papparazzi!" he thought, swishing his tail.

Off his sawhorse he hopped...

He ran up the electrical post in the alley and sat on the metal support staring at me. Trying, poor dear, to stare me down. Me! Feeder of alleyway squirrels, purveyor of peach pits and cherries! I stared back.

Then he stopped staring and started screeching. Swinging his tail, stomping his feet - not that you can tell by the pic. The boy (obviously a boy, so testosterone laden was he, or is testosterone not a squirrel thing? Or, it might be argued, the girl with her hissy fit) was mightily pissed off. 'Course I’d sort of be annoyed if people insisted on photographing me while I was eating, but still, you’re not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you. Or so I’ve heard. Now he knows what it feels like to be Britney Spears. I'm sure he had no sympathy for her whatsoever until yesterday.

And I have no doubt he would have bitten me, had I been close enough. Five minutes after I went inside, he was still sitting there. Ready to face down the evil papparazzi. And as soon as I opened the door he started up again. I’m sure he thought he was forcing me to flee with his terrifying carrying on. He really needs to learn to get over it already.

If only he knew I was the god of lovely sustenance falling from the sky. I mean seriously, how often does a Montreal squirrel get to eat pineapple or mango?

He’d probably give me attitude anyway.

Bedroom treasures

Once upon a time, lo, these many years ago, there was a little girl. A version of little girl perhaps three or four years older than this one.

She was a happy little girl, except for glitches now and then - after all she had a BB and sister to torture her. But again, that’s par for the course when you’re the youngest isn’t it? Now seriously, would you torture someone so angelic looking??? Apparently, looks can be deceiving, I'm told, but I digress.

Mom had a fascinating object on her dresser. As far back as I can remember I have loved this object, a glass perfume bottle. It just seemed so perfect. Round and shiny, with no extra embellishment. Just the round shiny bottle with its long thin stopper.



I could spend hours looking at it, touching it, holding it in my hands. It just seemed the epitome of elegance and perfection to me at the time. It still does. Plain is better - at least in regards to perfume bottles.

Recently mom told me its story.

She and Dad were living in Ontario at the time. BB and my sister were just little kids. One Sunday, they strolled past an antique shop and Mom spotted this bottle in the window. She immediately loved it. Of course, this was in those prehistoric times when shops weren't open on Sundays. Besides, it was in an antique shop, and so, as far as she was concerned way too expensive. After all, raising two kids on an air force salary, even back then didn't leave that much wiggle room for indulging in useless perfume bottles. So it remained nothing but a pretty trinket in a window.

A week later, Dad came home from work with something for her. Yep, the perfume bottle. And to make things even better, as far as my Mom was concerned - because no one hunts down a bargain like my mom - he paid fifty cents for it.

That fifty cent perfume bottle became my treasure, even though I wasn't allowed to take it from her bedroom dresser. Once in a while though, she'd indulge me and let me pick it up and open it, hold its weightiness in my hands. Those days were wonderful. I had held IT, my personal holy grail.

I've never been one to play princess much - boring as all hell, being a princess and having to await rescue. Instead I was a pirate, or the prince on his white steed battling the dragon for its treasure. That bottle always topped the list of imagined treasure.

Mom gave me the bottle at Christmas. Something got caught in my eye at that point, provoking a certain dampness. Now it sits at the cottage and I still love it and pick it up and open it... it's still my treasure.


PS: I also don't do maudlin much, but I need to keep y'all destablized once in a while dontcha know.

Friday stuff

Are we supposed to boycott nike because they make their shoes in Asia? I have no clue, but this commercial is spectacular - from the point of view of a rookie player.... (directed by Guy Ritchie I think)





Cavendish Microwave Fries sort of scare me. You put these fries in the microwave, nuke 'em for 5 minutes and they come out all golden and crispy. Crispy. From a microwave. That is so very very unnatural. I can't help but wonder just how incredibly many chemicals are added to the potatos to achieve that golden crispiness. Like I said, scary.


Spoiler alert:

I don't usually discuss the TV shows I watch here, because, basically, who cares. But last night's Survivor episode was a classic.

In probably the most ridiculously stupid move ever, Eric (a fan of the show since it's inception who knows everything about every player, ever) gave up immunity in order to "redeem" himself because he had lied. Lied. In Survivor... Well duh.

He gave it away to someone else and was promptly voted out, while believing he was safe because they had told him he was. He trusted the others. You're playing for $1,000,000, there are five people left and you're the biggest physical threat. Hello! How utterly mindbobgglingly idiotic. He deserved to go.

The rabid fan will go down as the most moronically stupid player ever...

(And yes, this is very repetititve, but there are only so many words for stupid.)

Things I know to be true...

• When you have two places (i.e. a cottage and a place in town) they each get about half the cleaning they deserve. You will not double the time you spend cleaning. Trust me.
• Put me within three feet of a knife and I'll cut myself.
• Doors frames and furniture move when I'm around, just so I'll bump into them. No, really, they do!
• I've just started watching season six of 24, and they're really stretching our credibility this time. The guy spends 20 months in a Chinese prison and 1/2 hour after he's out he cleans up and gives himself a really good haircut and an hour after that he's running around LA fit as a fiddle? After 20 months of quasi starvation and torture? C'mon!!! Iron Man move over. Jack is back. I love me my televised comic book heros.
• Work is highly overrated, even if you like your job a lot.
• This post by XUP is brilliant. People should be obliged to check this out before they get face lifts.
• The Millenium series by Swedish author Stieg Larsson is brilliant as well (the first of the three is, anyway). I have no idea if they've been translated into English. Too bad he died from a massive coronary just after he had finished the three books...
• Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel is a must read. Even if you're not into graphic novels
• Family rocks - whether the one you were born with (if you got lucky like I did) or the one you chose over the years.
• Never ever ever bet with Mr. Jazz on the name of an obscure character from a comic book he grew up reading (the question being who was Falballa in Asterix). You will lose your money. Guaranteed. 'Cause Mr. Jazz? He knows. A friend of ours learned this yesterday.
• When the hummingbirds arrive, I am one happy camper. They should be here within the next couple of weeks.
• I miss having pets.
• 40 is not the new 30. Your 40s are ever and forever the 40s, the jump into middle age, grey hair, aches for no reason, choosing to stay home over going clubbing, renting a movie rather than going out to see it... (le sigh). On the plus side, the sex is great.

A new documentary...

Hot Quebec actor (hot career and hot hot boy), after writing and/or directing a couple of quite good movies - Bon Cop Bad Cop, Trois Petits Cochons (Three Little Pigs) - is going to Africa to film a documentary on the Millenium Objectives voted by the UN in 2000.

The 191 member countries were going to make sure primary education was available to all, reduce poverty and hunger, promote women's equality, reduce infant mortality among other noble objectives.

Eight years later, Huard has decided to go see what's what, since, according to him, the UN is falling behind on all of these objectives .

Huh! Did he really thing the UN would actually do anything other than sprout good sentiments? If so, he's a damn sight more naive than I am. Obviously, nothing was going to be done. There's no money in ending poverty.

Who me, a cynic?

What if....

Facebook were live?

Dribs and Drabs Again

• Every second dog in Australia seems to be a Jack Russell terrier. I like Jacks, but this is overkill!


• It’s COLD in Montreal this week. That hasn’t happened since we got back from vacation.


• Despite the cold, the magnolias are blooming. I love magnolias


• The i-Phone has made it to Canada. People are lining up. It’s a PHONE people, get over it. It won’t do your laundry.


• There's also a new phone service called Koodo. Their selling point? “Just phone and text”. No frills service that does what a phone should do – call people. No camera, no internet, no bells and whistles. That’s what I’d get if I finally joined the 21st century. Can’t help but wonder if it’ll catch on though, seeing as people love their gadgets so damn much.


• A guy in Dallas was released from prison after 27 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. Damn! Here's to DNA testing.


• I noticed in Melbourne that lots of people wander around barefoot. In the middle of the city. How extremely bizarre…


• I’m bored. The dry shrivelled husk of my brain is rattling around in my skull and the noise is very annoying.


• I am perfectly sane.


• Despite a recently overheard comment that "bloggers are nutjobs, 'cause who has the time to maintain one of those things".


• I'm obviously at a point where I shouldn't be blogging if I can't find anything even remotely interesting to say. The muse, she has fled. Le sigh.
  

Correspondence

Dear City of Montreal,

You spent a year tearing up St. Laurent street (aka the Main, the street that separates Montreal into east and west). You were "upgrading" it, widening the sidewalks, spiffing it up, creating traffic havoc and a subatantial drop in revenues for the street merchants.

Now, it's done. Finally. Honestly, I don't see that much of a difference, but there you go.

So, this week what do you do? Tear up the sidewalks on St. Laurent to upgrade the gas mains. They must have already needed upgrading last year. Why not do it then?

You are idiots. Expensive idiots, since you're using my tax dollars to do the same work twice.

You've lost my vote.

Jazz




Dear Wannabe Goth Girl,

If you want to be goth, you gotta be goth. A handbag shaped like a coffin and skull earrings do not a goth make.

You need the clothes, you need the makeup, you need the hair, you need the footware.

Otherwise you just look ridiculous. I'm sure even your parents don't take you seriously. Who are you kidding you're not a goth, you're totally preppy. Deal with it.

Just sayin'

Jazz





Dear lady at the cash register.

Once the cashier is ringing up your purchases is NOT the moment to start runnning around the store looking for items you forgot. If you've only got half a brain, please make a list of what you need. The rest of us don't have time for your stupidity.

Irritatedly and with a list,

Jazz




Dear Cashier,

You can, you know, cancel her purchases at the touch of a button and tell her to move to the back of the line when she returns. It's not that hard. Remember, it's the electronic age. Beep, and it's gone. I gotta get my ass back to work - as do most other people in line.

Impatiently,

Jazz

And now, the visuals

Here's a start to the pics, I'll try and post more when I get a minute...

Funky Melbourne buildings in Federation Square:

And something much more staid, but ever so cool...



There are lots of these old houses in Melbourne with the lacy ironwork (I'll have to post a close up of that stuff...)



Melbourne Street art:

Shopping at one of the galleries - you'd swear you're in Paris or Brussels. Melbourne is oh-so- European. wich is oh-so-nice.




The mosaic at the gallery entrance (of couse the pic doesn't do it justice):



Meanwhile, in (on??) the Mornington Peninsula:


Mr. Jazz and I at the beach



At the Ashcombe Maze, I had difficulty making it through the rose maze, maybe because I had just discovered the macro function on my camera...



More ocean:



Some of the beach shacks in Dromana. People store their beach gear in these, and they're always all dolled up. Apparently they sell for anywhere between $60,000 and $100,000 bucks. For a 10x15 shack. Ouch. But they look good!


This is the type of sunset we had on the bay every evening (damn, I love my idiot proof camera):



In Rosebud (a town not far from Dromana) this statue commemorates what used to be the local cinema - now a shop of some sort.

Whereas this one commemorates the local dairy:



Sandstone formations at St-Paul's beach (one of the back beaches)



Waves at the Blowhole - another of the back beaches



Me... and my shaaaaaadow!!!

A tidal pool. The middle there is completely under water. The pic doesn't do it justice. They were absolutey spectacular.




The Melbourne skyline from across the bay

And a poor sunken rowboat - still tethered to the dock. It had probably been swamped during a windstorm that happened while we were there. I love that the sea can be so wonderfully clear 12 feet down...

And now I must proceed to work my little (or so the expression goes) tush off..

More Oz

I love the Mornington Peninsula south-east of Melbourne. We spent about a week in Dromana in a cottage loaned by our friends Furry and the Purple Goddess (no those aren’t the names their parents gave them, but these names suit them ever so much better).

It’s a great place. On one side of the peninsula you have a string of towns on the bay (the front beaches), and on the other side – about 15-20 minutes away by car – you have the back beaches, the real beaches with rolling surf and crashing waves (that’s sort of repetitive isn’t it?). God, the smell of the ocean! There’s nothing like it. It’s depressing to think that it’ll probably be a year at least before I manage to get anywhere near the ocean again.

In the middle of the peninsula you have vineyards, galleries, even an English style tree maze. And of course, as it's quite agricultural numerous animals producing quality manure for sale… There were tons of signs announcing manure for sale – except they call it poo.

“Poo for sale. $1 a bag”

Or better yet: “Free Poo”

It’s bizarre it is.

So we spent a week pretty much zig zagging all over the peninsula in our zippy little Hyundai Excel (le sigh), tagged with Queensland plates (Queenslanders are the Newfies of Australia, their Belgians, their Danes).

As an aside, why do people think Sarah Jessica Parker is so hot? I’m watching Sex in the City as I type (I finally had a moment of enlightenment and realized that just because I’m not online at home doesn’t mean I can’t type up a post, copy it to a stick and post it the next morning thus freeing up my lunch hours – who says severe jet lag addles the brain? – but I digress). I find her highly overrated lookswise, but then who cares what I think – plus she has nothing to do with Australia.

Once we got back to Melbourne we spent the rest of our time (except for an excursion back to the sea on the other side of he bay) wandering around the city for hours at a time. East Melbourne and its beautiful houses. Saint Kilda beach and its really really weird Japanese tourists, and this place and that place and no place in particular. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best way to discover a city.

Our travel style has changed in the past years. Whereas before Mr. Jazz and I would leave for a month with a backpack and pretty much wander across a country, now we both prefer to basically crash somewhere and get to know the area well. So cool to discover the places tourists usually don’t go. That little restaurant hidden around the corner, the park just off that office building… and it’s nice to get back from vacation actually rested rather than more exhausted than when I left. Of course, we don't know Australia other than the state of Victoria and parts of Queensland but that's all good, I'd rather know one area well than a whole continent hardly at all. Damn, I’m getting old.

(Oh, and for the record, I'm getting the pics ready, they'll follow soon)

Correspondence

Dear Bloggers,

I have really limited access right now, so I'll do the whole "rest of my trip" thing when I'm back next week - if work permits, which, with the CFH I doubt. I'll probably need a week just to patch up the damage. (Damn, I'm a bitch).

Anyway, more to come soon. A week in Dromana, wine tasting, the purchase of multiple bottles of Australian olive oil which is great, a cypress maze, more Vic market, aimless wandering around Melbourne (damn, I love this city). And hopefully pics if I can actually download the damn things...

Luvya all, and looking forward to catching up when I get back.

Smooches,

Jazz