Life's a Stitch

How do you measure a leak? Ours clocked in at 45 litres per hour.

Living in our new-to-us soon-to-be partially torn down and rebuilt house has been an adventure in waiting, but it looks as though demolition will happen in May. It's a good thing.

Fiction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fact: Here, it's time for a new roof, siding, insulation, drywall.... During the recent snow melt the neighbour told us that he could see our roof sheathing flapping in the wind, hence the indoor water feature, clocked at 45 litres per hour:

C & B couldn't wait until May to reduce the master bedroom suite to this:

Anybody want a bidet?

The shocking part, besides the fact that we are currently living in said house on a temporary basis, is that the date on the drywall and fixtures confirm that it was built in 1995. If you've ever wondered how long it takes for an neglected houseful of problems to rot away to the point of no return, you have your answer: 22 years. Don't ignore the issues, call the repair person right now.

There are saving graces in this story. We don't have to replace the foundation or the drain tiles and when we come back it will be covered by a new home warranty. And the deck view continues to reinforce that we've chosen to do the right thing:

Packing disasters

Packing disasters, the more you travel, chances are you've had your turn with a suitcase spill or some other packing mishap. A burst bottle of non-aerosol hairspray? A broken zipper spilling your dirty laundry onto the carousel for all to see? I've had a few myself:

I packed a hostess gift for my friend,  two bottles of British Columbia wine, something she wouldn't find in Florida. You know how, when waiting at the baggage claim, and you see a telltale trail of red liquid and you think, I'm glad that's not my piece of luggage leaking red wine. Wrong. This time it was mine. And why does it happen when you are breaking in a new suitcase? Her sweet husband, not a wine drinker, mind you, spent an hour the next day pressure washing my bag. It would have been a lot easier if the bottle of white was the one to break. 

It kills me to waste good food. Upon leaving our winter's visit to California one year, I had some spare weight available in my luggage. What should I pack? A five pound bag of fancy brown rice or the jug of pure maple syrup? For some reason I chose to bring the maple syrup home to its country of origin. That should have been reason enough to leave it behind, but I opted to bring coals to Newcastle, sticky liquid coals. Again, it was a new piece of luggage. No wonder I go though suitcases so quickly. I still have issues with the interior compartment zippers caked with dried maple syrup.

Then there was the time I hand carried ten bags of Canadian-only catsup flavoured potato chips on a flight from Toronto to New Hampshire, a request from my niece and nephew.  The flights were booked on points and included this last hop on a propeller plane where the pilot was younger than the aircraft. He nicely offered me space in a storage area behind the cockpit. During the flight we heard a number of ominous loud bangs, but we made it safely to our destination. On our arrival the pilot informed me that I could expect some potato chip casualties due to the non-pressurized cabin. And right he was.

 This year:

What possessed me to pack breadcrumbs? We have breadcrumbs in Canada and they are as cheap as in the US. I knew they wouldn't last through the summer's heat and I didn't want to take up precious freezer space, so they came along. At least           they vacuumed up easily. Those that didn't adhere to the syrup clogged zippers.

Here's a link to other packing disasters. I especially liked the one about the dead ducks. I know, though, that in my case I couldn't bring them over the border without attracting the attention of the airport canine unit.

Trying something new

Twelve and a half years of blogging, I've never ventured to the political side. OK, except when I commented that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics usurped funds from social services. Lost a reader that time. I'll take a risk by voicing my opinion on the antics south of our border. It boils down to behaviour. I would hope that a person elected to lead a country, at the very least, would possess some degree of natural diplomacy. 

I wake up each morning to Radio CBC. You know how your ears wake up before your eyes? I find myself all warm and cozy in my comforter, eyes still shut, listening to the tone of voice of radio announcers Rick Cluff and Amy Bell, trying to detect any inflection of disaster. Ugh.

And some political knitting content: I was amazed when I read a proprietor of a U.S. yarn shop refused to sell pink yarn to knitters of Pussy Hats, saying "the vulgarity, vile and evilness of this movement is absolutely despicable." 

End of rant.

Back to the usual stuff, and this also relates to knitting in a way. Committed to watercolour, I tried acrylic paint several times to no avail. Just couldn't get the hang of it. Wanting something more compact than paint, I took an online course in Mixed Media with Robert Kogge - coloured pencils and ink wash on canvas and I liked the way it looked. It's consistent with what draws me to knitting - a mixture of texture and colour.

It's also quite portable, not requiring the brushes, tubes and water of paint. On our first Camino I walked 500 miles with 13 ounces of watercolour supplies and never used them. I'll have to weigh a few small pieces of primed canvas, a limited selection of coloured pencils (leaving the final ink wash for when we get home), for our next pilgrimage. 

There are five steps: priming the canvas, a tonal drawing followed by a version with coloured pencils, an ink wash, and touch ups with the pencils. My first project is still in the tonal drawing phase as it is on the complicated side:

Walking through an art supply store I saw primed burlap and picked up a small panel to experiment with this technique. My Palm Springs area watercolour teacher has been encouraging us to paint potatoes in a brown paper bag. Each time the students reject the suggestion opting for prettier roses or palm trees. But burlap seemed to lend itself to the brown subject matter. What it lacks in colour is gained in texture:

 

Letter B, an alliterative experience

My baby blue bike was a gift from my daughter and husband a few years back.

Totally unexpected, it brought back exciting memories of my first two wheeler Schwinn in the same colour. Complete with plaid seat, basket and rubber bulb horn, what a wonderful surprise. They thought it would be a good means of transportation from our place to the community pool, a ten minute walk away. That worked for awhile.

I'm like a caged creature in this gated community. This year we began the expansion of our cycling horizons. By no means hard core cyclists, two days prior to leaving the desert, we did a 20 mile loop to my favourite Lake Cahuilla and back through the polo fields. I was transported to fifth grade me, on my second bicycle, a 26" Raleigh. Happy memories of my bike, book in basket and breeze in my hair. Not really, today the breeze was through the 18 vents of my turquoise helmet, something not required way back then, but appreciated now.

Fifty (!) years later you can add three more b's to the alliterative experience: boyfriend, beer and bathroom. To be more accurate I'd have to say husband (still my boyfriend), two light beers and an appreciation for the lake area's bathrooms rather than portapotties. I admit to being a sacrilegious Pacific Northwesterner who doesn't appreciate the flavour of micro brews and drinks decaf coffee, and as a woman of advancing age, my fondness for flush toilets.

Three hours flew by, picnic lunch and time to read in the sunshine, punctuated by a couple of trips to the aforementioned facilities.

The final B's were encountered as we rode through the El Dorado Polo grounds and saw a BIG Brown Bear.