Wow! I’ve had the most relaxing weekend
Ever. While winter has been frosting the
Windows and filling the driveway, my
Friend and I have been lazing about
In the hot-tub talking, reminiscing
About so many things. Listening
To a lot of terrific music. Also
Just generally catching up
With each other. Eating
And laughing 2 much.
At one point, I even
Wrote a poem, &

Can someone, anyone out there, please tell me how it can already be the month of March?
No, seriously, though. In a matter of hours, it will be MARCH!
March?
What the hell happened to February?
Am I going senile? Did I sleep through January or something?
Even with the extra day here, the 29th, I’m sorry, but something seems mightily askew!
Why does it feel like I was just back home not so long ago, for Christmas?
Is this just a classic symptom of old age?
Is the rest of this year going to be just as fleeting?
According to Robert Frost… perhaps…. perhaps it is!

The sun was warm but the wind was chill,


The sun sank, and they both felt its final shudder of warmth.
Turning, he looked into her eyes.
“I feel as though you are the one I have waited for, all my life. And now you are here.”
“I’m not even sure if I believe in such a thing,” she whispered.

Inspired by what Dorothy at Of Books And Bicycles did with her Nov.7th posting, I am going to do a meme-thing involving the letters of my blogname.
Here is the criteria, the rationale, the raison d’etre:

In doctor’s waiting-rooms, a decade or two ago, the tedium would have been relieved with quiet background music: sentimental songs from Broadway, popular classics like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Nowadays, however, one hears only the thudding, mechanical music favoured by the young. Their cowed elders bear it without protest: faute de mieux it has become their music too.

Yesterday I was a dog.
Today I'm a dog.
Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.
[Sigh!]
There's so little hope for advancement.
-- Snoopy –

Have a great Wednesday!

1. The last compliment I got was from my husband; he/she said I was doing great on a project I have undertaken.
2. I'm reading The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer.
3. I woke up today and thought T.G.I.F!!!!!!!

← Why is this man smiling?

I’ll tell you why!
He’s smiling because he just found out he can buy that mansion that is twice the size of his current mansion!

It's that time of the year again when Major League Baseball hands out its annual awards. On Monday, the first two awards will be announced, and that is the AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards.
Here are my choices for the awards and the days they will be announced:

Nov. 12: AL Rookie of the Year: Dustin Pedroia
NL Rookie of the Year: Ryan Braun

Friday Fill-In #49
1. I love the nostalgia surrounding Christmas.
2. Blue is/are my favorite color(s) for the Christmas tree lights.
3. The non-existent candles in the window have non-existent bulbs.
4. A Christmas Story (You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!) is one of my most favorite Christmas movies.
5. My favorite Christmas lyric(s) is/are

Just wondering…
Have you ever gotten involved with a book like for instance

I could sit at Chapters for 18 hours a day, day after day, and never be bored.
Anyone who knows me, knows that this is true.
Knows that it contains not even the slightest amount of exaggerosity.
I could do it. I could live at Chapters.
However, I should clarify something.
It is not the bookstore itself that I am really addicted to.

Well, here I am on the final leg of my holidays.
Still visiting. Still having fun. Still eating.
But come Monday, it is back to the coal mines for me. Tomorrow I will be boarding a plane and flying back home. Back to my meowing Jack, and the snowbanks I left behind in Ottawa.
At the end of each year I like to reflect upon the books I have read over the past 12 months. I reminisce about each one and see which come to the forefront as being especially memorable and worthwhile.

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
-- W.S. Merwin –

Absence sometimes makes the heart grow ANGRIER, I say!
I have so missed being able to blog, and to converse with my great blog-friends.
But I think I am back in business now!
The MAC is fixed!

Have a great Thursday!
**********

Chris Neil celebrates his game-winning goal, Nov.10, 2007.

In Grade 3, Neil’s principal asked him what he was going to be when he grew up. “I’m going to play in the NHL,” said Neil.

OK, let’s be serious here for about three minutes.
I AM THE WORLD’S WORST COOK!
Don’t even try to compete with me on this!
I CAN’T COOK STUFF!
And I’m OK with this.

-- Montreal --

Some of you may be wondering where I was all weekend.
The Bookpuddle has been silent of its usual ripples.
Montreal.
That’s where I was… oh yes, now I remember.
Montreal is a nutso place!
And while there, I discovered something I had not known about this city.
[Girlfriends, listen up. →] Montreal has the largest interconnected underground shopping system in the entire world.
That’s right. Not just Canada.
No.

I hope that everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend.
As for me, I’m taking it easy, sipping a home-made Starbucks French Roast coffee, and talking with Jack.
← Listening to the brand new double-disc Eagles CD. Thing’s got 22 songs on it! It’s called Long Road Out of Eden, and it is EXCELLENT.
Trust me on that. [Did you know that today is the 31st Anniversary of the release of Hotel California?]

Tonight I finished reading a terrific book.
A Widow For One Year, by John Irving.
I am not kidding, I think that Irving is perhaps thee most entertaining and engaging of authors that I have encountered in a long while.
A wonderful storyteller. I could listen to him forever.
For most true readers, Irving is not exactly a new discovery. For me, however, he is relatively a new find.
While reading this book in several coffee-shops, I’ve noticed that the majority of people that have seen its easily recognizable cover have felt the need to comment, along the lines of the following:
“Oh, that’s a good one, huh? Are you enjoying it?”
Or…

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up

It was such an awesome surprise to come home after work, well, after Starbucks, after work… and find something crammed into my mailbox in the lobby. I saw the return address and wondered, “Hmmm… what would that Torontonian Nutbar be sending l’il ol’ me?”
← It’s her new book, and it’s really great.

I could not wait. I ripped into the package there in the elevator.
Let me introduce you [as if you don’t already know who I am talking about] to the coolest chick in blogland → Patricia Storms.

Just a few words about the book I am currently reading.
→ THE THING IS TERRIFIC ←
Granted, I am not even half-through Mark Haddon’s newest novel, A Spot of Bother [lately, I only have about an hour a day to read…. so busy am I] but the thing is fantastic.
One wants not to set it down!
Short pithy chapters. Hilarious stuff. No… serious stuff.

Blackwing

Poison lies in wait, not about
To fill three trumpets with spit
While someone beats a drum. Not
Quite. It knows to tread softly up

I am sitting at Starbucks and just randomly thinking, as I sometimes do.
I am still slogging through a couple of non-fiction books, and just took a break from that to read a bit of the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway.
Just chillin’ out after a long day at work.
In this lull of a moment, while getting another coffee, three horrendously deep philosophically challenging scenarios have sprung unbidden into my mind, and I pose them to you…

#1.
You are wandering around in a blind fog and you are starving to death. Literally, you could almost die. Then the fog lifts, to reveal the following three equi-distant buildings. To which of these would you mostly likely drag yourself?

a) McDonalds.

Well, today was back to reality.
I had six days off, and that is a rare thing for me… workaholic that I am!
My next vacation is in August.
That's like an ETERNITY away!
Ho-hum!
Must make little stones out of real big stones, until then!
I spent those six days of vacation with my best friend, and one of the things we managed to accomplish was the complete restoration of over 3,000 songs on my iTunes Library.
I lost all of them earlier this year in the Great Hard-Drive Crash of 2008!
Remember that? Remember my anguish?
Restoration was a lot of work, but fun, and worth it all.
I am addicted to iTunes on my Mac. Best invention since..... HAMBURGER!
I NEVER HAVE TO PUT IN A CD!

Two newlywed University of Illinois grads were driving through Louisiana.
As they were approaching the town of Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the name.

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.

Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass.