Between June 21st and September 21st, Lady Grey* and I drove 4695 kilometers. That’s just about the distance between my home in Brooklyn and my house in Vancouver, though that’s not the road I drove this summer.
I reset the odometer for fall…we’ll see what I get up go driving across the street and back again to park and unpark, cruising the length of the BQE, and heading upstate and to Connecticut for various adventures.
I’m constantly making lists and then forgetting to keep them up. Its nice to have something count for me.
*Lady Grey is my little car, an ancestor of X-woman Jean Grey, the Queen who ruled England for a mere 9 days, and a kind of tea.
I skipped a class last week, which meant that I got to leave my house at 10 rather than 8 (to make it to Columbia for my 11am). It was so nice to walk to the subway when all the shops were actually open, seeing folks ambling about the neighbourhood. I stopped to get coffee and a bagel at the place that I like, and the gal behind the counter knew everyone’s name and their order–I think that this is really starting to feel like my ‘hood.
And then this morning it was really sunny and chilly as I biked over the Williamsburg bridge listening to Herman Dune. Small pleasures.
Assorted news:
Kurt and I got a kitten. Her name is now Ossington and we’re calling her Ozzy. I have become That Person who photographs her cat:
Lindsey came out to New York and she and I and Hollis went up to Rhinebeck for the New York State Sheep and Yarn Festival. We bought sock yarn and watched a knitting-with-chopsticks contest and pet some sheep and went to a Ravelry party. We camped near Pougkeepsie. I’m doing a pretty good job of exploring New York State and environs, I think. A better job than I ever did of understanding Ontario.
Here’s Hollis, folding some yarn:
(you can see Hollis in the first photo here, at the epicentre of yarn-and-blog fame.)
And here’s Lindsey on the Poughkeepsie riverfront:
If you are a Canadian who happense to be outside your riding on election day, you can vote by special ballot. But to request a special ballot, you need to prove your eligablity to vote.
Step one is the affirm your “residency criteria” by answering a simple question: Is your place of ordinary residence in Canada? (Yes or No)
Confused? Perhaps you need the Government of Canada’s definition of “ordinary residence”
A person’s ordinary residence is the place he/she calls home. This is the place where he/she resides and intends to return to when away. A person can have only one place of ordinary residence at a time.
This is Andy, at Voss’, in Utica NY, where we stopped for milkshakes when driving to Connecticut to visit Anna back in May. Overhearing conversations while standing in line, we gathered that it was one of the first few days Voss’ was open; everyone was really excited about their summertime milkshake fix, and there was one girl who squealing because of how pleased she was to be bringing a friend to Voss’ for the very first time. We kept quiet and didn’t let on that it was our first time there too.
And then, a month and a half later, I show up here, in the Sidney/Bainbridge/Unadilla area (the Tritowns) and realize that there are these magical ice cream stands EVERYWHERE up and down the minor highways. The closest is the Sidney Tastee Treat:
which doesn’t have as good cheesecake ice cream at the stand we stopped at in Norwich (on the way to see fourth of july fireworks), but is close and now I feel that lovely sense of ownership that one develops for things they can’t possibly own.
Like route 17. I really feel like that’s my highway.
It totally drives me crazy when journalists–in print and on the radio–say that person/thing/event “made headlines.” As if they, the media, have nothing to do with what “makes headlines” and becomes part of the discourse.
Maybe they’re just giving a lot of respect to the late-night copy editors who actually make the headlines.
It’s morning, I’m baking bread and listening to the CBC. It occurs to me that I will be living in America on November 4th, when as Martina Fitzgerald, the radio-lady, says “Americans will vote for a new president.”
When I was in New York last month, the election excitement was palpable, with Obama buttons and t-shirts that felt like real enthusiasm, not just kitsch. And it’s displayed on real humans, not the internet or the Globe and Mail. So it will be even more thrilling to be in the country during actual elections. I won’t get to vote then–maybe I can volunteer to drive little old ladies to polling stations. Do they even do that in America?
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