September

Sept 28 Trying to do 5 or 6 things at once tonight, so everything is getting done in a half baked manner! We banished poor Emmy to my sons apartment in Saint John today in hopes that Duddley can recover in peace and quiet from whatever he is suffering from ...(ie without a small grey flea gnawing on him) Not sure what is wrong but the noise he makes whenever he moves would make a really good soundtrack for a horror movie! Hope Emmy doesn't get to distressed being moved around. not to mention loosing his (second) mommy! Gord wore his new T-shirt in Saint John today, I bought it in Boothbay Harbour, it says 'Sail Naked, It adds colour to your cheeks'....

Operation Button seems to be working, Now all I have to figure out is how I am carding them for galleries.... how many buttons to put on a card? The gallery wants 2 sets of 5 or 6, I think 6 is the minimum number of buttons that you need on an adult sweater, but do I card them as 1's, 2's 3's or 6's, I know if I do 2's someone will buy two and the next person will want all 6 and there will only be 4 left.... I can see selling single buttons for the neck off a sweater though... Any comments, all emails will be answered! (My sweater will show up on the home page SOON...)

Sept 26 Drizzly here today, it needs to rain hard though as my car got completely covered in salt on the ferry coming home last night! So what did I do in Maine over the weekend, played tourist in Boothbay Harbour, it's a really pretty town that wraps around the harbour with a footbridge accross the middle of the harbour that was built in about 1890! Saturday I met Sonja in Freeport and she drove into Portland for the meeting, I think it was a fairly small group I demoed a striped bead, the first one was a mess as what we had picked out as clear glass was actually the new Moretti lavender Gold Pink and since the base of the bead was ivory... the bead turned into a grey smoked 'blob', It turned out that there was no clear glass, so for attempt number two I used white and green glass and that worked much better! After the meeting Sonja and I went back to Freeport and spent some time at the Beadin' Path, a bead and jewellery supply store, lots of neat beads...... Some even came home with me to be added to my stash! After Sonja left to buy groceries I checked out the Factory Outlet stores.... I started with the Rockport shoe store, that was a mistake as I then had to carry my two new pairs of shoes for the rest of the afternoon! One pair is burnt orange suede, sandles and the second pair are Pink suede and leather thongs, I passed over the thongs when I thought that they were $10.00 but once I found that the second pair of shoes was half price, how could I leave a pair of leather Rockport thongs behind when they where only $5.00?!.... Actually that was all I bought in Freeport except beads. I didn't even go in the LL Bean store (Freeport has the flagship store, it's huge) it's open 24 hours a day. Gord and I went in when we where there 3 years ago, however I did go in the LL Bean clearance store in Ellsworth... and liberated a lined jacket for $23.00 from there , the fabric looks a bit like dining room wall paper, but the cuffs are falling off my old Bean jacket, so ........

Sept 25 I'm home... thought my WM would post something while I was gone but, I guess a football game got priority last night... I think you could type a Rant on this computer and watch football at the same time, since anytime you hear cheering you run in for the replay...........
I pedalled just under 1000 km or 600 miles in the last three days, doesn't seem like I went very far when you look at the miles travelled but it takes nearly 6 hours to do 400 km (250 miles) on Maines Coastal Route 1. At one point in the trip you are simultaneously on three highways one is going North one is going South and one is going East so which direction are you actually travelling?????

I will point out that the gas price in central Maine this morning was $2.59 (US) / gallon that is 4 cents US more than what some Quebec gas stations raised their price by last Thursday night! They raised the price from $1.10 / litre to $1.85 / litre which is basically and increase of $3.00 Canadian a gallon or $2.55 US. The price of gas in Maine actually went down in the three days I was there, however I think some of the price drop was Sunday specials? However, I would think some of those Quebec stations should make a fairly good profit on gas this year!

Sept 20 Started sunny this morning but the clouds have rolled in, the weather types are talking thunderstorms, I think. Spent yesterday on the mainland, I went to Fredericton because I was trying to get into the metals program at the community college there. I followed all the instructions that I was given to get into the program as a part-time student , I phoned first in May and was told to phone back the end of August, then I was told to phone the 6th of Sept after the full time students had made their choices. The program I wanted was full, but I was told that I would be put on a waiting list and that I was FIRST! Classes started on the 12th, yesterday was the second day of class, I figured that if I just showed up, if there was a vacancy, I could fill it and only have missed one week! So far so good, when I got there, I was told that there was a vacancy and was given the registration form to fill out. Then the registrar said ' Oh, but I think that the program directer was going to phone the people who contacted her directly, so she may have filled the spots. I said, 'but you told me that you would put me on a waiting list and contact me as soon as someone dropped out!' .... her reply 'we don't have waiting lists for these classes'..... I said, 'but then why did you tell me you would put me on a waiting list'..... 'oh, I wouldn't have said that'.... I pointed to my name on her list, with my phone number and first on waiting list written under it and said, 'You did though'.... Her reply 'Oh I guess I forgot'....

Now I could have phoned the director, the former director or the teacher and got into that class, I know all of them, but I didn't want to pull strings and appear to have broken the rules! So what did following the rules get me SCREWED! Needless to say I am totally ticked off, on the plus side, it would have been a three hour drive EACH way every week, and at todays gass price $111.9 / litre I think it would have cost me almost $35.00 a week. So instead of expanding my skills I can continue doing same old same old for at least another year, the woman in question assures me that she will phone if another vacancy comes open, do I beleive her NO, however the instructor knows how displeased I am, she might phone me! Do I want to start a 40 week class after missing three weeks, Im not sure.........

Got to Saint John at about 4:30 yesterday and noticed that the front end of my sons car had once again been turned into an interesting shaped sculpture, no lights at all this time, and the bumber was sort of crushed..... 'Oh somebody hit me in the Wall Mart parking lot' (IMHO just another good reason to stay away from Wall Mart oops did I say that, Emmy must have typed that!) I said 'and you phoned the police to report the accident?', "No, why should I ?, what could they do....!' Enough said, So off to the auto wreckers to pick up the front end of still yet another Tempo, and yes you can get the entire front end of a Tempo into the back end of a Mustang! (Even with all my other junk still in residence!)

Sept 18 Not much to say, haven't left the house except to make beads since Thursday, it's still cloudy, the grass looks like it's grown three inches over the weekend... it's now probably long enough that little Emmy could hide in it! His greatest sport in life now (aside from bouncing off my head in the middle of the night) is tormenting poor Duddley. Emmy is now up to almost 4 pounds so about 1/4 Duddley's weight!

Yesterday I got a copy of an 1895 grade 8 final exam in my 'mailbox', You had 5 hours to write it and it covered 5 subjects, I figured when I got to the math, well at least I can do these questions.... no problemo.... A wagon box is 2 ft deep, 10 feet long, and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold? OK so I don't know the volume of a Bushel but maybe I would if I was 124 years old! In the next question you had to know how much a bushel weighed....? I think that would vary on how dry the wheat was wouldn't it? Wonder what they used as Grain driers in 1895? Then there was the section on US history....I know who Bell, Lincoln and Morse where, so I might get half marks for question number 7!

Birds and the Bees 2005 Style

A little boy goes to his father and asks, "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers, "Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! You Mom and I first got together on a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with you Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a blessed little Pop-Up appeared and said, "You've Got Male!"

If you want to check out the rest of her funny page you can cut and paste the address from above! Spent yesterday on the mainland dodging thunderstorms and buying Christmas presents, yes I'm one of those sick people who starts buying Christmas present in Sept... of course everybody gets more than they should because I just keep buying until it comes time to mail the parcel.... Gas is down to $1.16.9 /litre that's a drop of 23 cents a litre almost $1.00 a gallon, it can keep dropping!

Sept 14 So much for hot by Wednesday, Monday was hot, yesterday was cool and sunny, today is just cloudy.... Yesterday I got over 130 emails! I joined a Yahoo Bead Pen Bulk Buy.... The pens are now ordered so to avoid 60 emails at a time, (and yes I skim them all before I delete them), I think I will unsuscribe! Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas to go with the product from my $12.50 knitting needles! My office manager Mr Huck L. Berry is currently wearing the prototype, he bought me a flat screen monitor for my birthday so that he could retire, he's moved onto the back of a chair in the living room so now he can glower down the stairs at the customers!

My father got the cabin in SK reinsured yesterday, I can't insure it anymore as we live to far away and there is no reciprocity between Maritime and Prairie insurance co.'s even though we do live in the same country! There is an old (wood burning) Parlour Stove in the living room there that we had to send pictures of and make all sorts of non usage promises etc.... 15 years ago when we bought the cabin, but now that we have Natural Gas too, the wood is back up and therefore good!!!! (I guess there have been too many ice storms etc and insurance co's are having to change their tune about things that burn wood!)

Sept 11 Still sunny here but temps are high teens or mid 60's, but it is suppose to be hot again by Wednesday! Time out for some 'tire kickers', that's what we always called customers at craft sales, that are just looking............. I think my squash 'beads' are done, I have 9 that I like and about 20 that I don't! Definitely rotten though, the model is mostly eaten now too(doesn't taste rotten, it's just extremely ripe!). Spent today making spacer beads, 3 of each colour of transparent, to replenish my stocks!

Since the evil grinch is away for the weekend Emmy is sleeping through the night no playing at all, but then I don't throw him off the bed every 5 minutes so he doesn't think he's being played with... and SLEEPS! Uncle Duddley is still sleeping outside, unless it's raining at 10 pm and then he comes in and hides! Discovered that Emmy doesn't like having the central vac turned on three inches from his head, I could almost vacuum him up, just another small grey dust bunny!

Sept 9 Since the gallery traffic seems to have disappeared entirely I decided to take my two days off! Wednesday we went 'Whale Watching' in Money-Pit, now that is a totally misnamed 'sport' It should be something like " Join Captain Bligh, In search of the elusive whale", Actually we did see 3 different sets of whales, the first two were Minke's I think, they actually played around the boat for awhile and the whale watching tours hadn't found them so they where our whales! They made Whale noises every time they broke the surface too, so if you could tune in on the noise you could usually find them. From the Minkes we went chasing after the Whale Watching Boats and saw two or three Finbacks(?) being chased by 4 boats, they had water spouts, or according to Captain Bligh Steam Geysers every time they broke the surface. The whole scene reminded me of Duddley chasing my previous cat Holy Smake around the house with my DH in hot pursuit! We anchored just off of Campobello and walked to a small restaurant for lunch, Sailed home and met up with one more whale on the way home. Managed to turn my face into a raccoon, quite becoming!

Yesterday I went to Saint John to take my son grocery shopping, I got a box of garbage bags for $150.00 I think I got ripped off! Actually where I did get ripped off was on the knitting needles that I bought, I wanted a set of 8mm (US size 11) double pointed needles, the 7mm needles were $5.60 the 8mm needles were $12.50!!!! Now that is a rip off! Gas here is either $129.9/ litre or $139.9/ litre inspite of the fact that the cost of crude hasn't gone up it's actually the same or lower the pump price isn't moving... So just who is it that is making all the money....?, and I don't see the oil companies contributing their profits from price gouging to The Red Cross either!

Sept 6 Sunny today but much cooler, an older gentleman that I said hi to today mumbled back 'last nice day we'll see this year' Hope he's wrong, haven't checked Netscape weather! Finally found the perfect colour glass to match my rotten acorn squash that I'm using as my 'model' for my harvest exchange beads! Acorn squash are really hard to come by out here... so I had to settle for an overipe one that has seen better days! There are tonnes of butternut squash here but they just look like mishapen green pumpkins! I have 11 prototype squash, (The WM suggested I could just claim that they had been grown on a toxic waste dump, he figured that would explain their strange colours!!!) now I just have to make another 9 to match yesterdays 'winner'!

Sept 5 Still sunny, it can stay this way until next summer! The verdict on the couch and chair.... Nothing that a cover can't fix! Of course the cover will cost 2 or 3 times what the couch and chair did! AND... my suggestions that he get a job and quit worrying about having the apartment look like Martha Stewart decorated it are being ignored! On second thought maybe an ankle monitor would be a good idea!

I now have signs up all over the island telling people how much farther they have to go to get to the gallery! Good timing right, two days before I'm going from regualr hours to by chance! The people did show up, I guess my signs have added me to the list of offical tourism information sites for the Island. Think I should collect menus from all the restaurants then I can just hand them over without having to comment on the food! Re future hours, I think I will be open Fridays and Saturdays from now until Christmas, not sure about Sunday... See if I get any of the leaf watchers stopping, the island really has too many evergreens to be a leaf watching destination though, but, we saw some really nice leaves last fall on the Northumberland coast.

Sept 2 Sunny hot and muggy, today. Yesterday was fun, delivered stock to St Andrews, then spent some time in St Stephen and found a couch and chair for my sons apartment in Saint John.... Of course he is claiming that they are pink, I'm claiming beige, 1960's vintage original upolstery, you probably know the colour... Beige right? (aren't all men colour blind?) Really good shape and really good price, actually the carpet and walls of his apartment blend with the set very nicely, dark bluey green. Anyway the little ingrate shouldn't ask me to buy him a couch if he is going to complain that it's pink when I buy him one! After I bought the couch I was almost at the second border crossing between St Stephen and Calais so decided to use the Milltown crossing. The US border gaurd wanted to know where I was going, ...'Eastport', why?.... 'nice day for a

drive' how are you getting home ?...' ferry', how are you getting your car back?.... 'I'm bringing it on the ferry' (yes the words 'you twit' had to be choked back!) Guess he hasn't been in Northern Maine for very long! Eastport was lovely, wandered around in all the tourist traps, sat out over the water on the deck of the Wacco Diner, and had my first Rip Tide beer (a product of a micro brewery in Portland ME) It certainly won't be my last! Actually considered buying a case, but restrained. The ferry trip this time was totally clear so could see for miles... no whales though! The Canadian Customs officer was on the ferry too so I asked what my beer that I hadn't bought would have cost me... an extra $1.00 a bottle, I'll wait til I'm out for 48 hours sometime before I bring beer back! After I got home I managed to get myself invited out for dinner to a cabin on one of the nearby islands. Was lovely sitting out on the deck there watching the sun set, yes the mosquitoes did show up, but they weren't unbearable... today I'm back in the gallery supervising cat fights!