Highways & By-products of Pre-historic Life.

I have a brilliant idea for a new reality show! Here's the pitch; take an unemployed Librarian, put her in a compact car with 2 overactive cats, then have her drive 5,100 kms in the winter. Now that would be entertaining!


Well folks, are you ever in for a treat!  In 3 weeks time, this blog will be bringing you EXCLUSIVE coverage of just such a voyage. Due to factors that are out of our control, it looks like our best option to get both the cats & the car safely to Baltimore in a timely manner is for me to drive them. As you can imagine, most parties involved do not like this idea, but what can I say? Nuts to them.


I'm up for an adventure, and I certainly have the time. Will it be dangerous? Maybe a little. Will it be harrowing? Yeah, probably. Will I end up spazzing out and having a nervous breakdown by the side of the road? Umm... no comment. All I can say is I will be very well prepared, I will be cautious, and I will take my sweet time. How many people get the opportunity to drive all the way across the continent? How cool is that!


To change the subject and maybe divert your attention enough to keep you from lecturing me about the dangers of winter travel in the comments, let me tell you about the muffins I made last night.


I have an awful lot of leftover food stuffs in my pantry & freezer, and having been brought up in a family that wastes nothing, I feel really, really guilty. The unopened packages I will be donating to a local women's halfway house, but I've been trying to use up what I can. I rummaged around and decided to make some muffins with what I have on hand, altering a recipe to fit my ingredients. I came up with chocolate-cherry muffins. I soaked some chopped dried cherries in brandy and added them, some cocoa powder and a few chocolate chips to the batter. Well, I have to report that something was not quite right. They turned out looking like petrified dinosaur poops. Seriously, I could punk the whole paleontological community by burying a few of these. Strangely enough, they taste pretty good, but eating something that looks like a turd takes a certain level of mental (& emotional) fortitude that I just don't posses right now. Instant oatmeal it is.

Vacuous in Vancouver

I marked my first night home & alone in Vancouver by watching the movie 'Sleepless in Seattle'. 

On a recent trip to Seattle with a girlfriend, we went on a tour that took us past (amoung many other places) the houseboat that was featured in the movie. They played a clip where Jonah shows his Dad the letter from Annie, and Sam replies:

Come here. I'll show you a sign. 
(looking at a map) Where's Seattle? And Baltimore? Right there! 
There's like 26 states between here and there. That's a sign.

We laughed and laughed, because we'd just found out that Sean had been offered the job in Baltimore, and it really did feel like a sign.

On an unrelated note, if one more person comes up to me and sings 'Goodmorning Baltimore!' they will be walking away with fewer teeth than when they came. I vow here and now to never, ever see Hairspray again.

The apartment is empty save for some random orphaned furniture, the cats, myself and the dust bunnies. It feels very big. Time seems to pass very slowly. Actually, time seems not to pass at all. I'm working 6 days a week, and it just feels like repeating the same day over and over again.

I'm also hungry, and poorly equiped to remedy this. I'd put aside some old pots & pans, dishes & cups, but was so incredible stunned during 'The Great Pack' that I let the movers pack everything I'd put aside. I do have a kettle though, and thanks to 20 years in Girl Guides, I could cook a surprising array of foods in a ziplock freezer bag. 

But right now, I'm sticking to instant oatmeal. I can't tell you why I bother eating it. I'm convinced it's the poster-child of depressing foods. And it tastes like wallpaper paste. Or maybe that amino-acid gruel they eat in the 'real world' in the Matrix.

Oh well, I might as well hunker down and get comfy, because I'm here for 6 long weeks. 

Where do I park my Dog-sleigh?

Hold on to your toques folks, I have some news!

We're moving to Baltimore!!

... well, actually we've sort of already moved. Okay, that's not technically true either. Let me break it down:

• I am currently situated in Cockeysville, Maryland, USA. 
• Sean has started working at his new company and is officially (and legally, so no need to call the INS) living here.
• We are in a stinky, awful 'Suites Hotel' that turns into a ghetto version of Studio 54 on the weekends.
• I leave to go back to Canada on Saturday.
• My new hobbies include; screaming like a crazy person at the GPS, freaking out at my poor husband when unexpected things happen, spontaneously bursting into tears, and apologising even more than usual.

As you can imagine, this is a really big change for us. I would venture to say that it is an even bigger change for me, as I've always lived within 10 kms of where I was born & raised. 

So there's a hell of a lot to say & share, but I have things I have to do! I'll just say that while this is a completely terrifying thing we're doing, it's a once in a lifetime chance at a fresh start, opportunity & adventure.