Thank you! Results received!

Mind you, the lightning strike that took out the power on Barrington Street this morning was maybe going a little far, but the rain itself is much appreciated!

Shaun from Gloryhound remarked last night that he's getting really sick of snow.

Shaun is a skier and snowboarder.

And he's sick of snow.

Heh. 'Nuff said.

It is snowing again!

Yes, I know, it's Nova Scotia, and it's March. Even so! We've had plenty of winter already, haven't we?

I just dropped off my last book about the Tudors. For the next little while I will stick to my own story, as well as wholesome fictional vampires. (At least until the book on Anne Boleyn arrives on interlibrary loan...) We'll see what I think of 'em.

It is damned cold out! I like having four seasons, but the thing about having seasons is, by the time one is ready to end you are eager to move on to the next one. Spring will be very welcome!

And I'm over the cold, so I'm going to get some writing done tonight. (I'm working on the assumption that the SMU thing is for SMU folks, which is usually safe.) So let's see if I can get my characters to confront one more suspect, and if I really get moving I may even get my protagonist shot tonight.

(But I know he'll be fine, so that won't keep me up tonight...)

So we had a wind warning yesterday and today. How strong was the wind? It was strong enough that I was pushed down the sidewalk toward the bus stop last night.

It was strong enough that I saw some lady walking along Barrington Street with her hair flying straight up.

It was strong enough that as the bus sat at a stoplight it was actually rocking from side to side. And it was one of those big accordion buses, too!

Equally windy today. If I had the right sort of umbrella, I could be Mary Poppins...

Tomorrow is my last day of work this week (I am taking Thursday off) so I will probably go see Harbourfire at the Seahorse tomorrow night. Rob is still out of town so Tribeca Tuesday doesn't seem to be happening. On the other hand it appears Gloryhound is playing at the campus pub at Saint Mary's U tonight, which should be a good show but might not be the best idea for someone on the faculty of a rival university. Hmm.

Anyway, before I make any decisions I'm going to meet catseatsocks for a coffee down the street. Which should be cool.

Actually, since the wind is still slowing pretty hard, it will probably be considerably more than cool, but I have a hat...

And here I am back at the library, returning three of the holds I picked up yesterday. Coach Girl's party was postponed due to the weather, but today is just beautiful. Snowy, but lovely.

I actually read the three books I just returned--one was large print and a very cursory fictionalized overview of the life of Catherine Howard. One was a highly sentimenal but still pretty gripping fictionlization of the lives of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard--too much to stuff into one book, really, except that in many ways the main character was Henry, who begins the book as a monster and gets progressively more monstrous as the story goes on. (Murder Most Royal, by Jean Plaidy. 1949, I think.)

The last was a biography of Catherine H, published in 1961. They say no man is a hero to his valet. Well, the poor queen was certainly no heroine to her biographer, whose kindest term for her seems to be "imbecile." Okay, she was by no means wise, but on consideration I object to the biographer's scornful comment that, unlike Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, nobody spoke up for Catherine, which tells us something about her qualities. There must have been a reason she inspired no loyalty.

Because naturally the fact that, after Katherine and Anne, everybody realized exactly what Henry was capable of, could not have been a factor in courtiers' efforts to distance themselves from the disgraced Queen. No, no, it must have been her fault nobody rushed to stick their heads into the same noose.

From a 21st century perspective it was amazing to me that the great families remained eager to throw their daughters to the monarch, but it does appear that after Catherine Howard's fall, when Henry made it a crime to present the king with a less-than-maidenly bride, the families were a bit less eager. I guess it's one thing for your daughter to get her head lopped off, but quite another to suffer the same fate yourself. It was indeed likely then to die in a fall while social climbing.

Next time I read online discussions of how dissolute society is now...

Right. On to the barn...

I'm at the library for a minute picking up some holds, and judging by the way the snow is coming down I have serious doubts about whether I'll make it to Coach Girl's birthday party or Mike Trask and Mudhill's CD release bash tonight. I feel bad about both, but we've already established that I am a big old chicken about driving in bad weather.

And because I am, in fact, old, I am also hoping really hard that Gloryhound left New Brunswick really early this morning and arrived home safely before the snow started coming down too hard.

However! I got home last night and found a message from the post office, telling me I had a parcel to pick up. Yes! My DVDs of the history plays have arrived!

I was feeling sort of toasted last night so I just popped out Henry V and looked up the Crispin's Day speech. As with the "winter of our discontent" soliloquoy, the actor delivered it in a naturalistic manner, sounding like a guy trying to buck up his officers and himself before the battle. Like he knows they might all die and fail, and he's trying to come to grips with it.

I am old and sick and sentimental so I was all wobbly by the time he got to "we few," which you may recall I've said I cannot imagine how many times you'd have to rehearse before you didn't tear up as the actor. This production handled it by letting Henry get wobbly himself, like he understands what he's asking if his officers and men and he loves them for it.

Massive win, from what I can tell. At this rate Dad is definitely getting those tragedies for Father's Day.

And for Mother's Day... well, Leonard Cohen is coming to town that week. But more on that later.

So I went to the barn and checked Mitzi's legs. They are perfect, thanks. And then... it was a nice evening and I figured there was no telling whether it's stay fine so I figured I'd longe her again.

We were just working nicely on the right rein when the snow started.

And now it's storming like a bastard, frankly. Cripes!

(Although I am pretty sure last year we had at least one bad storm in April, but I am afraid to look it up.)

Anyway. Mitzi worked well despite having a WTF? look on her face. And I got safely back to Clayton Park. But now I think I had really better pick up my holds, head for the drugstore, and go home.

Okay, it's not that the freezing rain out there actually amounts to an ice storm or anything, but when you (by which I mean I) are standing at a bus stop on a completely level stretch of road, and the bus is stopped at a light, and when it finally comes through the intersection it still goes into a wheels-locked slide up to the bus stop...

Well then, my friends, she is icy.

And don't even talk to me about that big hill that leads from Clayton Park down to the harbour. Yikes!

But here I am, so here we are.

Remember the snow post about two days ago? Well, it's rained pretty much steadily since Tuesday afternoon and now the snow is nearly all gone. Truly, a weird climate.

On the plus side, I didn't have to shovel out my parking space after all. Done!

...We had another snowstorm today.

And for anyone who is starting to feel down in the mouth about this fact, here's a little guy who probably thinks this weather is the BEST!



I should sell the Honda and buy some huskies...

Lease Girl and one of the other kids went and built a snowman before they left the barn, so the job got done. I ended up not even going out for dinner after all--my friend's street, which I drove down on my way home from the library, was really slick and there are no sidewalks leading up to her building... so I just didn't feel like either walking or driving.

I stayed home and read. More on that later.

And thanks to the folks who are sympathizing with me over the weather... or possibly gloating. But I spent four years in Texas and the very idea of hot sunny weather in February actually makes me feel sort of rashy all over. Believe me, it was bad for my disposition. I'll take the snow!

Anyway, I thought that was a particularly fab snowman!

Dang! I just remembered, I meant to build a snowman in the ring before I left the barn!

Probably just as well I didn't stick around long enough to do it--it's coming down here in Clayton Park, but it was snowing even harder in Sackville when I left.

I had Mitzi out in the pen earlier but it turned out that, while the snow was nice and sticky for me to stand on, underneath was still icy so she kept slipping and sliding while walking on the longe. So I turned her loose for a roll and we came back inside.

Now I'm going to pick up my holds (two Grateful Dead books and A LIBERTINES CD, dachelle!) and go home. I was going to go to work for a while tonight and order some more books, but it's not worth going out in this. I'm going to a friend's place for dinner, anyway, so no point rushing. And the friend is close enough to walk.

It's snowing again.

Man, if I don't get a snowman built this winter, it will not be for lack of opportunity!

Turns out Rob and Adam cancelled the show last night because of the weather, so I'm glad I didn't try to do anything stupid. I left work about five minutes after my last post yesterday and as I mushed down to the bus stop I was thinking, "Yeah, I'm staying in and watching American Idol tonight."

So here I am on Wednesday morning, down about a litre of brain cells, but safe!

...but if we get anything like the five centimetres of ice pellets and snow they're calling for tonight, I won't be going to Tribeca tonight. Sorry, Adam and Rob, but that's pretty much exactly what the weather was doing two weeks ago when I scared myself.

Sucks that all the weather is happening on Tuesdays lately.

Okay, if anyone drops in here this morning hoping for a report from Tribeca last night... sorry. I didn't make it. And I'm pretty disappointed about it, since the special guest was Jason Heywood of The Divorcees and I had really been looking forward to hearing him.

( And the reasons why I didn't make it may be quite boring to those not interested in tales of winter driving and little Appaloosa feet, so the rest of the story is behind the cut. )

So: no musical report, but Mitzi's foot looks all right, and for once I think I may have shown good judgement. Always a first time!

I'm thinking that tonight on the bus I'll try to determine what the roads are like before I venture anywhere. I'd like to get to Adam and Rob's show tonight, but I don't want to end up in the harbour or something, either.

Okay, Texans, this is a drawback to living up here.

On the other hand, I can't remember our last tornado warning, so it evens out.

I just dropped into the public library a minute to check my email and see who was eliminated from The Amazing Race. Go, hippies!

The plane was late getting in on New Year's Eve and I walked through the door of my place at just after midnight. So I decided to bag the Marquee show, since it would have involved digging out my car (my brother drove to the airport and we left his car there, so he offered me his, but he was going to see a friend and I didn't like to drive his car for the first time at night or leave him stranded--OR park his car on the side of the road!)

Anyway, the cats were glad to see me.

I'm unpacked and have done my laundry. Mitzi was glad to see me yesterday. I've cleared my parking spot, more or less. I still have no idea what time zone I am in. And I perceive that after last night's thunder-snowstorm, it's hailing again, so I think I might go home.

Bye-bye, Goths! I realize this means that rotten fighting couple is probably going to win the Race now, but at least the hippies are still in it with a chance!

Actually, that's a lie, I can. Last week buymeaclue posted about the "Snowpocalypse" in New England, and we've gotten a variation on that. Thursday, as I posted at the time, there was snow and sleet and the roads got nasty overnight. Friday evening it snowed, and things got treacherous enough while I was travelling two blocks to thallid and deceptivelyevil's place that I bagged any plans to go out to the Seahorse later. Sorry, Harbourfire. It's just that the steep hill between the Bedford Highway and my place starts to look a little daunting at times like that.

Saturday was cold, and then Sunday we got hammered by a storm that apparently clobbered Oklahoma and Kansas last week. This is one determined storm! And in fact it made things very nasty yesterday. (That Gloryhound+Chucky Danger Band show at the Seahorse last night? Turned out to be rescheduled for Tuesday. Which was smart of everyone involved, and I for one was not going anywhere.)

After midnight it all turned to rain in Halifax so instead of Snowpocalypse this morning was Slushapalooza. And I just looked out the window and, since it's twelve degrees Celsius or so, things are melting like crazy and there's green grass visible out in the courtyard.

And it's supposed to drop to -14 later this afternoon, so it'll be icy as hell on the way home.

No wonder Nova Scotians are never bored. Frequently confused, but never ever bored.