“How many horses does it take to haul your fat ass around town?” I’m sick of SUVs. We need to DO something about them. Who ARE these people riding around in these planet-killers? A guy in an enormous Lincoln Navigator gave me the finger the other day when I pulled out of a parking lot into the lane in front of him. Yeah, like he needed to worry. Had he hit me he would have crushed my wimpy Corolla like a bug. Fat ass! Child killer! Irresponsible twat! Happy Earth Day to you too, pal! Cool info from the Sierra Club Web site: “Switching from an average car to a…

Check out Laugharne, Wales. Beaches like PEI. Never snows. Seven pubs. 2000 people. One of Wales’ largest used bookstores. 100+ kids (and young parents). Did I mention it doesn’t snow? Take a tour of Laugharne. Be sure to click on “Scenery.”

I just spent 6 days in Wales, the land of my ancestors — story-tellers, miners, musicians, dreamers. I managed to trace my mother’s side of my family back to its origins in a tiny subsistence farming community called Disserth. The family name is Weale because Great Great Great Great Great Grandpa’s family lived next to a mill, powered by a water wheel. Yes, it’s that simple. If I’d been a Jones, the search would have been more difficult, of course. The strongest and most ambitious of the family left the farms behind in the mid-1800s and went underground in booming mining communities a few hours south by horse and cart.…

This web site has been pretty quiet lately, mostly because life has been the opposite. I just spent an hour throwing out old clothes and “rationalizing” my closet after realizing this week that I just spent 6 weeks living out of this house (for renovations) and did not once open the closet. So why is all that stuff there? The quest for “stuff” is a soul-sucking abyss, and I’ve fallen right in. It helps to have the perspective of memory. Some of my most happy days were spent wandering aimlessly and alone with just one change of clothes and a notebook. That was 9 years and a lifetime ago now.…

There’s a little town called Fenelon Falls about 3.5 hours drive south-west from Ottawa. No, I hadn’t heard of it either. And it actually takes longer to get there when you have a 3-year-old in the car, no map, and drifting snow. But what a cute little town! It’s basically one street lined with two-storey brick colonial facade buildings. Lots of handmade signs for tailors and restaurants and pool halls. The Tim’s is rightly banished to the other side of the falls. We went to Fenelon Falls to support our friend Mike Perry at his nomination meeting for the federal NDP. He was nervous, but got the speech off the…

You can now buy shrink-wrapped, pre-cooked boneless roasts of beef. Just pop them in the microwave and serve. The Maple Leaf Meats advertisement says “No longer do you need an occasion for a roast.” Shame. This is an all-time low in Canadian cuisine, eclipsing pre-cooked unrefrigerated bacon or mini translucent jellied salads with suspended apricot chunks. Loblaws has announced that it is building a new Superstore not far from my house, in a stretch of field that to now has been used as a neighbourhood vegetable garden. These huge stores are designed for more than groceries. You have to cross ailes of bulk goods and housewares to go from the…

Don’t you wish you could vote in the US election? http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html

It’s that time of year again. Only in spring do I find myself drinking coffee at 4 in the afternoon in the desperate hope of winning an obscenely large TV or SUV. But most of the country will just see Réessayer SVP when with shaking hands they roll em up. Tim Horton’s Belinda Stronach, millionaire-PM-wanna-be, is hanging out at Tim’s to win votes. Bonne chance, B. Check out her super lame Blog.

The first thing I thought as I stepped off the plane in PEI was: Who would live here? But I’d arrived on one of the worst days of winter – the snow was going sideways in 100km winds, and by the time Jasper and I got to the car, the side of his head looked as if he’d been sprayed with canned Christmas snow. It was a bad start to a weekend funeral visit (see below). Anyone thinking of renting a car from Charlottetown airport should heed this advice: Book early or settle for the Ford Tank with the unbalanced tires and the summer windshield wipers. There’s a letter in…

My grandmother passed away last night, from complications following a stroke she suffered two weeks ago. Sadie Anna Nicholson was 85. Grammie Nicholson wasn’t my natural grandmother, really a step-gram, but you’d never know. Being a grandma came naturally. She was a sweet and very loving woman who embraced her new grandkids without hesitation. I’m sure at first she wasn’t wild about the idea of her son marrying an older woman with three kids, but it all worked out in the end, and we kids never felt like we were somehow less important. Gram was classy that way. Once she made up her mind about something, she stuck with it.…

Turns out, it was asbestos. And I did breathe it in. Not a lot, but there you go. I’m more worried about the contractors who were down on their knees cutting into it with power saws blowing dust up into their uncovered faces. There is no clear evidence that this one-time exposure will eventually kill. Long-term exposure to other toxins like lawn pesticide is probably way more dangerous. Yet I was shaken this weekend. I felt I’d been living blissfully unaware near the Chernobyl nuclear site — only to be told later the whole place was contaminated. So my contractor has agreed to clean up my house, and we move…

I’m waiting today to find out if my contractor cut through asbestos tile in my old kitchen floor. And even when I find out if it was asbestos, the advice is mixed on what it means. On the one extreme, it means my family has been exposed to a potentially lethal contaminant (there’s the nightmare scenario), on the other it means we have to be extra careful cleaning up. I scared the crap out of myself this weekend reading about asbestos, but now I’m feeling the risk was minimal. Still, the doubt is nagging. After watching Dad die of lung cancer a couple of years ago, the memory is suddenly…

Did you miss Day 2? Catch up here. Day 1 Videos from Week One: Drillin’. Hey, you broke my wall! Swing that hammer! “I’m ceasing to film this orgy of destruction.” Don’t believe what you see on TV. Home renovation is only fun when you’re on the couch holding the remote. That said, Suzy and I are devotees of Peter Fallico, on HGTV’s Home to Go. We like the handy household tips, but mostly the way Peter seems to glide rather than walk. Thank you to everyone who wrote or called to offer advice or comfort. The quote of the week came from Martine in Ottawa who said, “I like…

Day Three: The expensive hole. Return to Day 2 Video: Drillin’. Yesterday was supposed to be simple. I’d put a lot of thought and preparation into the planning for the kitchen, including nearly $1000 invested in drafting plans that were checked and cross-checked. But so far the experience has proven a well-known but little acknowledged truth about renovation: You can never consider or anticipate everything. First it was the hole in the wall for a built-in china cabinet. Our designer Lori suggested we buy a couple of old storm windows to refit as cabinet doors. Sounded like a good idea. But just try to find something like that! Suzy and…

Reno2004 – Day 2 The contractors didn’t show up today. First they said they’d be here at noon, then they called at 3 to say it would be tomorrow. Not a great start. Yesterday was very productive, but Lori says to expect to see a lot of progress at first, and then a slow-down. I guess it’s easy to tear stuff out. Tomorrow the hardwood flooring starts, and the new archway in the kitchen. The lights are ordered, and the electrical should be roughed in within a few days… Photos from Reno Eve and Day 1 First we painted the kitchen wall. It was fun; we should finger-paint other parts…