A partridge in a pine tree

Actually, it's a ruffed grouse that Jorghnassen first thought was a rock.



O hai!



It was only the second time we spotted the grouse in our backyard - the first back in October. It might not have a nest nearby, but it was welcome to sit under the branches and hang out for a few hours. Still, pretty cute!

Some other feathered friends like to come by and gorge on our backyard buffet, like woodpeckers, yellow and house finches, chickadees, and the occasional junco; but our cardinal friends are quite photogenic and I managed to take a few photos of the male today.

Summer Flowers!

I haven't been gardening much as I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing, but here is a sample of the various flowering things on our property. Most were present when we moved in.

For instance, at the east side of the house is a shallow, shaded garden plot with almost no sun and a mess of crazy plants growing that may or may not be weeds - I am still not sure. However, I know there was deliberate attempt at planting perennials and flowering plants in a meaningful pattern, as evidenced by this one, sad, pathetic rose ... stick. I can't even call it a bush because it was literally two sticks in the ground this spring. But it did give birth to something surprising:


At the front of the house is a disgusting walkway that was probably hastily put in by the previous owner because it didn't even last one winter and fell apart. There is no division between the walkway and the garden plot in the front so I think we might get it redone entirely soon. I can't see it lasting another winter. Anyway, we planted some cute annuals, some soon being chowed down by ants. :(







The east side of the house showed some other cute blooms that can stand the shaded mess:


Good thing I didn't mow it down with my lawnmower this spring...


Two mystery annuals were planted in the tomato planter, with the promise that they would attract hummingbirds. I haven't seen them yet, but the flowers are cute! :)


One of the hostas has actually bloomed something terrific.


These are right next to the hostas, which contrast the lavender colour nicely:


A funny thing happened last fall, when I was trying to clear away all the crazy weeds that had plagued our back yard forever. Along the retaining wall, as I pulled and cut and threw out a ton of shit, a little patch of those chick-and-hen thingies appeared before me. They wept out, "Pleeeaase! Put us out of this misery!" And I said no. So this summer it put forth its revenge upon me and sprouted this scary mofo:



Last but not least of the craziness of our misplaced east side garden, is this dandy that keeps trucking on, despite being grown without any sort of wall or stand that clematis are supposed to be holding on to. We didn't even catch its existence until about a week ago.

Wedding Planning - something else

I got them pierced on Friday. One down, a bazillion to go...

Goodbye Antec Aria, we hardly knew thee :(

Dear Antec Aria,

Although I was very happy that you came into my life back when I built you, I knew that it was too good to be true. You delighted me in your cute cube-ness, and your glaring, blue LEDs that lit up the night while I tried to sleep as I downloaded huge files; your highly convenient - in theory - but non-functional card reader was my largest pet peeve, among other things like becoming discontinued and "improved" upon as the new NSK1380 model without card reader, most likely due to it being non-functional to begin with.

Everyone marveled at your smallness. They oohed and ahhed you as I showed you to everyone who bothered to look, as I beamed proudly and told them that you were "adorable" and "gave me many a headache." I even enjoyed the relative dustiness of cleaning your innards every so often, swabbing the little corners with rubbing alcohol and making lots of dust bunnies in the corner of the room.

Alas, it was indeed too bright an existence with me. Last night, while I was busy listening to the marvelous Saturday night recordings of Colorfinger (SA), sailing away at a Cursed Isles adventure on Puzzle Pirates (as I often do now to kill time and to be adored by my SA crewmates), and contemplating on wedding planning... Everything suddenly turned black. Silence.

Except for one singular noise.

Squealing away while your power cord was still plugged in, I realized it was your time.

Your power supply had suddenly died. The saddest thing is that I cannot transplant a power supply, as your case is too cute and specialized to have just any old one (oh noooooo), and I can't get your plug out of the case anyway.

Thus, it must be that I bid thee farewell, my dear Antec Aria. You served me well through three different cities, and you have come to your final rest.

With deep regrets,
your momma ;_;

***
(Before you ask, the warranty is only for 3 years anyway.)

I am borrowing Jorghnassen's laptop in the meantime, while I wait for my new case to be delivered. The NSK1380 may fill in the same spot on my desk, but it certainly won't fill the same spot in my broken heart. :(

PRC finally arrives...

Alors, the complication of having a job that necessarily requires interaction with young "vulnerable" folks means to have to get a police record check. Unfortunately, these are only valid for about 6 months after they check the records for you, and then if you're still not hired during that time it isn't so valid no more and you'll have to get yet another one.

Fortunately, my pricey 60$ Montreal PRC and 25$ Quebec City PRC back in 2006 were eventually used to procure a job in Waterloo, so those paid themselves back. The new unfortunate circumstance is that I wanted to volunteer in the local Ottawa schools to tutor mathematics under a volunteer agency (so that I can meet school principals and make connections to get into the occasional teachers list, so that I can finally get HIRED by the school board), so I needed yet another PRC from whoever.

The good news is that Ottawa police will do it for free provided you give them a letter from the volunteer agency. Done. The bad news is that I asked for it back in March, and it arrived in JUNE. Woo! Let's go tutor those kids now! >:( (In fact, it was completed in May and somehow they managed to not deliver it for yet another month.)

I feel like every single step I'm trying to take to get into the education system here is thwarted by another bureaucratic blockade that is determined to squeeze out whoever isn't favoured by nepotism and/or the virtue of being Catholic. (Did you know that to work in the catholic school board as a full time, part time, or occasional teacher, you have to be catholic? Analogous to requiring someone who cooks French food has to be French.)

Alberta Allows Right to Ignorance

Seriously messed up.

I can understand that parents and guardians want to protect their kids from hate speech, abuse, crime, disease, and other kinds of horrible things... but surely you can't protect them from information? As much as our society values knowledge and critical thinking, for some reason when it comes to just informing them on things that they will not be able to avoid when they grow up (if they grow up), there is a huge uproar over the rights of the parents to shield their children from being possibly corrupted, because they found out that blow jobs aren't a form of abstinence or that creationism isn't a science.

I can't even imagine how the hell anyone can even want to be a biology or ethics teacher like this. I always thought that teaching and education were important to everyone - yet when this kind of thing happens, even when the government backs the right for people to stay ignorant, it leaves me flabbergasted.

Also, CBC is a cesspool of idiot comments.

Camera's not borked, but the batteries are.

Apparently behind the yews on our property, there are some sort of apple or crabapple trees. I stumbled upon them as I was pruning the old branches on the slope (and there were a lot of them). They were so pretty I clipped a small branch off to bring indoors. :)

P.S. To the National Post - I hate you >:(